Pride is here again this year. And compared to last year, I want to warn all of you my LGBT+ friends and acquaintances. It feels however, the pendulum is swinging rapidly towards us and is back to being in the realm of LGBT intolerance, threats of violence, and we're going backwards with the progress made. Specifically it seems to be heavy handed towards the T part of LGBT, Transgender.
Due to a recent situation I had, I was asked why pride. Well when I explained, it felt the response went one ear and out the other. So I'll explain it again.
The Reason Pride Happened was because it started as a riot because we weren't gonna take it anymore! For the early 20h century, The Lavender Scare, the Holocaust (LGBT people were killed in the Holocaust), Police Raids, and having Homosexuality being classified as a mental disease, had all worked well in discriminating and even killing people. Hell, take a look at this propaganda piece of 1961, yes 1961 called Boys Beware to have a look at what people thought of homosexuals not even 62 years ago. (https://youtu.be/L62QF8NyHZo) Then when the Stonewall bar got raided various individuals there from Marsha P. Johnson to Sylvia Rivera and all others fought against the police fights to be seen and heard that we aren't gonna be taking it back in the closet, arrested or go through conversion therapy. That is why we have Pride. It's both a celebration of the progress we made and the need to be ensured and to show that we are and can be safe and have dignity as people. But now it's June and I want to say a little more.
Last year, I noticed that it was a whole shitshow with Rainbow Capitalism than never before. (Rainbow Capitalism is as it sounds, corporations and buisnesses capitalizing on LGBT Pride Month with constant pandering without seeming genuine in support of LGBT people) Mostly this shit was sadly called out by a lot of conservative news anchors, activists, and culture war influencers and grifters who take advantage of this whole situation with Rainbow Capitalism and one politician, Ron DeSantis who made it his whole personality because of his ongoing fight with The Walt Disney Company. We'll be getting back to Ronny because oh boy, Florida is a shithole of discriminatory policies, Republican fear mongering, and Political Theatrics of inordinate proportions. These people used Disney's wishy washy attempts to be on support of LGBT, and yet have their major stockholders and higher ups in the corporation be supporters of various conservative politicians, to try to make it out as a woke boogeyman like its the end of the world. Today, its going to be this shit all over again with these corporations with rainbow logos and corporations apologizing to right wing individuals who can destroy their private property, in the case of Target last year, because they got their snowflake feelings hurt. But now they're trying again and it's more successful even with lying. The New York Post recently showed articles talking about the recent situation with a ring wing rapper making a song about targeting target, to claiming the tuck swimsuits are for kids which really got this going. The author of this article ( https://nypost.com/2023/05/24/targets-reputation-takes-a-hit-after-pride-2023-collection/) claims that Target is selling swimsuits to minors with the ability to tuck, a phrase meaning to hide one's privates usually trans-women, for kids. But going on Target's online site tells a majorly different story. (https://www.target.com/c/pride/-/N-5589f) I went to the site itself and I checked that they only sold swimsuits on the adult side. Not kids, ADULTS! I decided to check the family side which included children. There were no swimsuits and you can check yourselves to see if. Maybe the New York Post should've actually went to their local Targets to be sure that their story was true but it's better to tell a story in yellow journalism than the facts. And the Post loves telling stories versus facts. And in recent months, Bud Light has been part of a more successful boycott due to just sending a specialty can to Trans-influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Everyone lost their shit just because they sent her specialty cans of Bud Light with her face on it. They had to deny multiple times that was specifically made for her and not a specialty sold can. It's like if any other influencer or celebrity had a special can from any beer company meant as a means to sell. But most right wing assholes from randos on the internet to has been celebs like Kid Rock shot up all their Bud Light. To make things worse but not a surprise, both Anheuser-Busch and Target, have caved to these people and have tried their hardest to stop all forms of their LGBT support or apologize. It's this stuff that shows that corporations never cared and we know it. This is bullshit from all side with corporations apologizing to a loud group of weirdos who probably don't actually buy their products in the first place. Surprisingly, Disney has kind of stayed firm but thats because of Ron DeSantis.
Now to Ronny. To a lot of Republicans, he is now a possible candidate to be in the White House but granted his policies and the policies of other Red States discriminating against LGBT, mostly the T. In recent, DeSantis had famously made the Parental Rights In Education bill, or as its popularly known, Don't Say Gay, into law. In the 7 pages, it primary has vague legalese but the main point is that the law originally claimed that it would prevent kids up to 3rd grade knowing or preventing others from telling them about any LGBT issues. Of course it didn't solve what of a kid who has LGBT parents and says it, teachers who are LGBT, or what specifically they don't want 8 year Olds to hear other than maybe, they just exist. But remember it was up to 3rd grade back last year. Well, they gave an inch, and went for the whole mile.
This bill you see here is the Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida. This bill was passed by the Florida Board of Education. Among this, it says that 4th through 12th grade will be banned from any talks of LGBT related stuff if not applicable to the rules in the bill or for health related talks which parents can request having their kids out of, well granted that would've been a major given with how Flroida has grown more Republican than its original swing state situation with various elections. But in general, the same problem applies. No Discussions of people who are LGBT, have parents who are LGBT, if a Teacher is LGBT they should shut rheir mouth, but it also targets another aspect, LGBT high school clubs if I can go far with this. Because High School Clubs require a teacher to be a foundation for a club, and since they can't talk about it, they aren't allowed to have this club. I would argue this is a clear violation of Freedom of Assembly granted the rules of public school clubs and forming them. My own high school had a Gay Straight Alliance and its much needed to help youth transition into the world with knowing they're not alone and there are others like them but Ron DeSantis, Bill Lee (my governor) and others can't fathom this to happen because of their recent boogeyman of wokeness. (That can be an article in and of itself if you guys would like.) And these aren't the only laws. Let's go into one final example from my own state of Tennessee.
Governor Bill Lee, signed a law with ensuring kids wouldn't be near Adult oriented buisnesses. Naturally no one should be opposed to such a thing. But as we have just learned, reading between the lines has even more worse consequences.
Here is the full picture of Senate Bill 3. This is what's called the Anti-Drag Bill but conveniently enough, it doesn't mention drag but "male and female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a pruient interest. First, what the hell doest that even mean? Second, translation. They claim its to target male and female impersonators who do any sexual things like provocative dances, stripping, etc. Now naturally those kinds of drag performances are the ones we don't ever take our kids to! So this whole law feels ridiculous to the common sense minded. But they specifically see that Drag Queens and Drag Kings of any kind, regardless of whether they have 21+ or family friendly shows and how they advertise their shows, are all bad. Anything from Drag Queen Story hours or family friendly brunches aren't to be allowed. But even when it's obvious that the shows are family friendly, no one wants to hear it. Shouts of OK GROOMER! are justified as an argument. Of course I could claim and talk about how many religious pastors, priests and church officials have been arrested and found to be responsible for actual child abuse, whether be emotional, physical, sexual, or in many cases, all 3 but the people who dress as the opposite gender are the problem. But even if they have the "prurient interest" aspect of the law, who says they can't abuse it? Some Have feared trans people could be targeted and honestly, I see their fears because the law is written in a vague way, anyone can interpreted it to where someone could report a trans person for not wearing the clothes of their biological birth. And Unfortunately, LGBT related issues are always seen as sexually inherent due to having non-heterosexual interests. So thus they can easily manipulate an argument to have someone arrested but there's one final demographic that can be targeted. One that I'm part of, The Cosplay Community.
I've seen men dress as female characters in a comedic manner. Lots of them dressed as Anya Forger last HolMat. Then there's cosplay drag Queens like Jimmy Sherfy, CoutureFX, and Annie Mae (Zachtherippercosplay). But lets not forget most of the cosplayers in the past were females and they were open to cosplay as males from various anime from Naruto to Hetalia. Anyone remember Hetalia? Even though it's obvious people crossplay for various reasons in convention settings, and despite being predominantly private events due to needing to pay to enter, if cosplayers go out in public, some Karen police officer can nag their way into worming people gettings citations or worse arrested. I also want to thank cosplayer aweirdonetoo3 for bringing this to my attention.
To end this all, these as well as 556 various anti-LGBT laws restricting everything without reading the laws, putting targets over the community in general, mostly targeting trans people, it's time to show why Pride exists. It's our celebration and call to protest! United we Stand and divided we Fall! GAY PRIDE DARLINGS!
