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Pride pet peeves
Jun. 25th, 2015 02:13 pmI've been spending too much time on the internet again, so I'm seeing a lot of the usual, almost ritual grousing about recent Pride celebrations, to wit:
ETA: Don't forget that Microsoft paid for my sex reassignment surgery at a time when very few employers and no private insurers would do so. (Oh wait, that time is still here.) Those people marching in the corporate contingents? About 95% queer and 5% true blue allies, judging from what I saw as a Microsoftee. They are us.
As for the greater queer population being x-phobic for your value of x, yes, this definitely happens. We also need each other. If you're trans, cis queers outnumber us around twenty to one and out-earn us by more than that, qualities that are really handy in allies. If you're cis & bi, the homos & trans people have visibility outside the queer community that you have yet to acquire. If you're cis & homo, the bis can about double your numbers if you include them, and they're a much-needed reminder of the complicated truth about sexual orientation. And we out trans people are walking reminders that assimilationism is bunk.
In other words, do what you need to do to get what you want, and spare me your whining & cynicism. It's worse than useless.
Besides, you know I love to party, and this is the big queer party. That alone is still reason for me to go to Pride events. If you need more, party to let the x-phobes know that we're queer, we're here, we're fabulous, we're better people most of the time, and we're having way more fun than they are. Party to let queers in India or Texas or Everett, WA or Rainier Beach high school in Seattle know that there is a better place for them, and if it's too far away, they can make one of their own.
- Big Bidness has discovered that queers can be customers, and so Pride is now too commercialized.
- The greater queer rights movement ignores or marginalizes or otherwise defecates upon [insert your particular subgroup of the queer population here].
ETA: Don't forget that Microsoft paid for my sex reassignment surgery at a time when very few employers and no private insurers would do so. (Oh wait, that time is still here.) Those people marching in the corporate contingents? About 95% queer and 5% true blue allies, judging from what I saw as a Microsoftee. They are us.
As for the greater queer population being x-phobic for your value of x, yes, this definitely happens. We also need each other. If you're trans, cis queers outnumber us around twenty to one and out-earn us by more than that, qualities that are really handy in allies. If you're cis & bi, the homos & trans people have visibility outside the queer community that you have yet to acquire. If you're cis & homo, the bis can about double your numbers if you include them, and they're a much-needed reminder of the complicated truth about sexual orientation. And we out trans people are walking reminders that assimilationism is bunk.
In other words, do what you need to do to get what you want, and spare me your whining & cynicism. It's worse than useless.
Besides, you know I love to party, and this is the big queer party. That alone is still reason for me to go to Pride events. If you need more, party to let the x-phobes know that we're queer, we're here, we're fabulous, we're better people most of the time, and we're having way more fun than they are. Party to let queers in India or Texas or Everett, WA or Rainier Beach high school in Seattle know that there is a better place for them, and if it's too far away, they can make one of their own.
