At the time of this article, it’s June 2019 and we are celebrating our beloved Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Bisexual and Queer community. Hence the name LGBT. Nowhere in there is there an “S” for Straight. Yet, popping up more and more among the headlines we are seeing the words”Straight Pride Parade” in bold letters.
I hate to be one to add fire to the flames. However this needs to be addressed, and I want to throw in my two cents. Let me just be clear about my views, LGBT Pride Month is about remembering the struggle & hardships of the LGBT community. Pride is the best way to describe the fight in overcoming much of the hardships that come with being a marginalized group. Yet for some reason, attention has been rerouted away from that & towards what’s been being called “straight pride”.
What is Straight Pride?
Straight Pride has been around since the 1980’s. It’s no surprise that it’s been used primarily by right-wing conservative groups as a rhetorical strategy to present a negative response to gay pride.
Earlier this month a group of right-wing activists, calling themselves “Super Happy Fun America”, have registered for a permit with the city of Boston to hold what they call a ‘Straight Pride Parade’. The sad reality: they got the permit!
Why is a Straight Pride Parade A Problem?
white people straight people
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victimizing themselves and saying they're oppressed because they're not the center of attention in the media #StraightPrideParade— maria 🌈🌈🌈 (@ria_chavez214) June 17, 2019
If straight pride were an organic outcry from an oppressed group then I’d say, go for it! However, since straights are not an oppressed class their parade doesn’t come as an expression of pride. Instead it comes as right-wing rhetoric. I see Straight Pride as a backlash to gay pride by straight white men who need attention. The one month attention is dedicated to other than straight people, all of their insecurities spill out.
The Purpose of the Straight Pride Parade Is Not To Celebrate “Straight Pride” But To Gaslight & Demean The LGBT Community .
Part of the problem with the “Straight Pride Parade” is the leadership. Many of the names associated with the parade are right wing provocateurs. Mark Sahady is a member of the facebook group “Resist Marxism”
Sahady wrote in a Facebook post “We will have the streets closed and be allowed floats and vehicles, this is our chance to have a patriotic parade in Boston as we celebrate straight pride.”
John Hugo is the president of the club hosting the event. He is a Republican candidate for Massachusetts 5th Congressional District in 2018 and lost to U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark.
What will be the Straight Pride Flag? Read More Here
Why is Gay Pride Month so Important & Why Straight Pride is Stupid
Let me tell you why gay pride is so important. The LGBT community have been subjugated to senseless oppression for millennia. They have been forced to bury their person hood because of the pressures of social conformity. These pressures stress a hetero-normative worldview, that erases any queer identity. With no place to express themselves Pride Month allows LGBT people a safe space to celebrate their history.
Straight people were never marginalized and therefore have no need to create a safe space. Straight pride is everyday of the year. These month long celebrations of cultural, social, racial identity etc. are around to make up for the lack of representation these groups faced throughout history. Straight people claiming a “pride” day deface the integrity of these events centered around marginalized classes.
How Straight The Pride Parade Is Cultural Appropriation
Gay pride parades continue to be practiced today in order to commemorate & respect the history of the LGBT struggle for equality. In 1969 the gay rights movement officially started at a New York Gay Bar called “The Stonewall Inn.” From that point the “Gay Liberation Front” hosted marches across the united states. These marches helped spread awareness about the issue of gay rights & the erasure of gay people from the history books. These parades brought homosexuality out to the open. Gays were able to use this safe space to reclaim their collective narrative from those who told them that they didn’t exist.
Straight Pride never had to undergo so much hardship as those in the Gay Liberation Front did. So for straight people to take this aspect of the Gay identity is a direct offense to their community and is cultural appropriation in all its forms.
Straight people who have lead a privileged existence have never dealt with the hardships like the LGBT community. For them to no only lampoon pride month but to appropriate it in the name of progressing their extreme, racist right wing agenda ads more credibility to the need for the kind of cohesion that we see in the LGBT community to begin with.
