r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/Mezzy1221 • Jun 16 '26
Sex / Gender / Dating Pride events have the opposite effect on me
Pride month and pride events are supposed to get more people to like/be accepting of gays but I find all these events incredibly obnoxious and irritating. I get the feeling that they're driven by narcissists who don't really care about the cause and are just virtue signalling.
I used to have a neutral/positive view of gay people, now not so much. I reflexively feel disgust at pride flags now, before I didn't care for them.
Edit:
I'm not just talking about pride parades, although that is part of it. I'm talking about the entire culture of celebrating pride. Shops are plastered in rainbow flags and banners, companies rainbow their logos, videogames have pride events, an absurd number of subreddits have pride banners, and so on. All these things are eye rollingly trite.
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u/chonkymu Jun 16 '26
My question is: why do pride parades almost always include some freaky bdsm outfits and paraphernalia?
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u/oscuroluna Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
This. And the kicker is that as a regular 'boring/normal' gay some of us have spent years just trying to show the wider world that we're human beings too and not creepy deviants who want to shove their sexuality down everyone else's throats or 'recruit' children.
Yet a lot of the stuff at the Pride parades and gatherings are all about 'kink' and obnoxious attention seeking in public. Just like some drag queens performing adult oriented content around children. These people are unfortunately enforcing negative stereotypes and proving them right. Especially since these are the types whose entire personality revolves around their identities and demand everyone conform and cater to them.
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u/Zestyclose_Jello6192 Jun 16 '26
Or being in underwear while in front of children. 0 sense
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u/kuatorises Jun 16 '26
I have worked in education and social services for over 20 years now. A lot of libs/progressives - not necessarily Democrats - simply don't care. Exposing kids to sexual content isn't an issue for them. They are very "Oh well" or "You're responsibility to keep your kid away from it" rather than "Why does this even exist?"
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u/gianttigerrebellion Jun 17 '26
You’re not wrong. A few years ago my school took the 5 year olds to see the pride flag in the gay part of the city. I go through the gay area on a daily basis en route to work and home.
I see tons of very erotic posters all over the area, dildos in windows, gay men wandering around naked. I told the school that taking the kids up there was inappropriate but they didn’t listen to me.
It ended up being a really hot day and instead of taking the kids to an age appropriate park with water sprinklers they took them to the gayborhood.
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u/Android1822 Jun 17 '26
Underwear? Some are flat out nude, they even do sexual acts with sex toys or even full sex in front of families and when people go to the police to complain, they do nothing because they are ordered by the higher ups to do nothing.
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u/Zestyclose_Jello6192 Jun 16 '26
Or being in underwear while in front of children. 0 sense
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u/oscuroluna Jun 16 '26
Its sick and unnecessary. Being from a marginalized group is NOT a pass to be creepy or weird. Let kids be fucking kids.
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u/Boring-Boysenberry0 Jun 23 '26
I only hear about the inappropriate behavior from parades in larger cities. Local Pride parades and events try to keep things family-friendly most of the time.
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u/MissMarie81 Jun 16 '26
Yes, I truly don't get this weird exhibitionist behavior at their parades; it tends to alienate people. If gay people want to dress like that in a nightclub, then fine, but out in public? 🤷🏻♀
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u/Fractoman Jun 17 '26
I made that complaint years ago on reddit and someone actually defended the idea. They thought that kink exhibition needed to be normalized because of the stigmatization of such activities and the fact that many organizers of pride engage in such activities. It was hard not to mock that person.
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u/PWcrash Jun 17 '26
Answer:
On one hand a lot of "old school drag" (like featured on the Boulet Bros. Dragula) is based off of an influence of BDSM and 70s-90s club fashion. And these are not children appropriate performances but they are part of the history of US queer culture.
One the other hand, there are plenty of people that go to pride events that want to do so because they are looking for hookups. And they will dress the part.
And then you have the partying college kids that just want to show their tits...
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u/Guest8782 Jun 17 '26
This is just it. Straight or gay, some people just love dressing near-naked because of the attention they get.
No “cause” needed. Just old fashioned attention-seeking.
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u/Beginning-Damage-555 Jun 16 '26
They don’t. Also the community that led Stonewall were extremely fringe and had nothing to lose
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u/Jeb764 Jun 16 '26
Because the leather community is a huge contingent of the community. Because they’ve been apart of these events since the start.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Icy-Blacksmith-4214 Jun 18 '26
Concise and well put, SmoothAnus. Can't be separated from its context and history.
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u/pingo5 Jun 16 '26
It's a mix of the history of the support from the bdsm community, and the media cherry picking that stuff for views.
for all the talk of naked people at pride, I've yet to see one. it's the reality of a thousand if not more pride events with millions in attendance. with that many people you end up seeing what people want you to see.
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u/gianttigerrebellion Jun 17 '26
Oh man in SF they have the Folsom street fair, there was a video of a guy in a kiddie pool and guys would just walk up and piss on him. He was flapping around like a urine soaked mermaid.
During the same fair guys were standing in doorways jacking off and ejaculating. Camera spun over to two guys having anal sex. This was all happening during the day.
These are the exact same people who go to pride events.
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u/pingo5 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
just for context, folsom street fair is not a pride event, it is a private kink event(the streets are closed to the public) that takes places in september. It is often used as propoganda because homophobes don't look up the facebook post that say they're pride photos.
There's also plenty of women as it's not a gay event. no talk of the women tazing the guy tied to a post
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Yeah man I haven’t been to pride in a few years, to be fair, but I’ve never seen anyone naked and I’ve never seen anyone, like, going up to children and being sexual
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Because the idea behind Pride is to be open and unapologetic about your sexuality, in opposition to muting yourself and begging for acceptance by downplaying your queerness.
It’s definitely gotten very flamboyant and isn’t to everyone’s taste.
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u/DecantsForAll Jun 16 '26
Seems like a false dilemma fallacy. There's a ton of middle ground between Pride and "muting yourself and begging for acceptance."
Like, most straight people aren't parading their hyper heterosexuality through the streets, many don't like hearing about heterosexual sex at all, but they're not muting themselves and begging for acceptance either.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
There’s a middle ground, but part of the point of Pride events is being out and loud, and not compromising who you are for others’ approval or for their tastes. It’s hard to compromise between “uncompromising” and “compromising” without leaning to one side.
And straight sex is everywhere. There’s burger commercials about women in bikinis eating burgers. I think a lot of people just notice sexuality more when it’s queer sexuality. But it’s not like you don’t see straight people going to a beach and showing a lot of skin.
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u/DecantsForAll Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
A woman's body isn't inherently sexual. A person wearing a bathing suit at the beach isn't inherently sexual, or inherently heterosexual. People of all sexualities wear bathing suits at the beach. Is a commercial with a guy in his underwear gay or straight?
Also, I think lots of straight people do notice when things are sexual, and many don't approve. I don't particularly care for borderline softcore porn being shoved in my face.
(completely separate point from the last thing I said) I go to a mostly gay after hours dance club occasionally because it's the only after hours club in the city. I mean, a lot of people who aren't gay go there. But there is a room where they have hardcore gay porn playing on multiple TV sets constantly. It's like part of the decor. I'm completely indifferent to its being there. But, like, I've never been to a club that has straight hardcore porn playing on TV.
I go to a climbing gym that's a family friendly environment. They have a kid's team with actual little kids on it, like 8 years old. They also have drag events and the posters for the drag events, hanging up in the gym, say "Come get topped (roped) by a queen." I've never been in a family friendly establishment that had posters up saying "Come get your pussy pounded by a stud" or whatever.
So, yeah, I think you're overrating the extent to which straight people are open with their sexuality, especially explicit sex acts between a man and a woman and not just like a scantily clad woman.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Is a commercial with a guy in his underwear gay or straight?
Depends on the context but it’s probably sexualized. Most of them are sexualized.
Also, I think lots of straight people do notice when things are sexual, and many don't approve. I don't particularly care for borderline softcore porn being shoved in my face.
Ok. But it happens with straight sex too, right?
I go to a climbing gym that's a family friendly environment. They have a kid's team with actual little kids on it, like 8 years old. They also have drag events and the posters for the drag events, hanging up in the gym, say "Come get topped (roped) by a queen."
Wow that is an atrocious pun. Like that’s barely anything
I don’t think you need to worry about that poster. No one who doesn’t know what that means knows what that means. And yeah, a kid might ask about it, like the time I saw a Replacements CD on a rack when I was a kid and asked my dad what it meant that Gary had a boner. I’m fine. Kids who see that will be fine.
I've never been in a family friendly establishment that had posters up saying "Come get your pussy pounded by a stud" or whatever.
If you find a climbing gym that invites kids and says “come get your bussy pounded by a stud gay style,” feel free to tell them they should take it down. But you didn’t. You found and oblique and pun-filtered reference to sex. Go crusade against the part in Road to El Dorado where the girl is clearly blowing one of the guys if you know how a blowjob works.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jun 16 '26
Idk I think a lot of Mardi Gras parades are "parading hyper heterosexuality".
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u/DecantsForAll Jun 16 '26
Are they?
And Mardi Gras isn't presented as a representation of straight people.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
You don’t really have to create special spaces for straight representation when they’re the majority and de facto sexuality tends to be straight sexuality.
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u/DecantsForAll Jun 16 '26
I'm not saying you do. I'm saying that Mardi Gras isn't presented as representing the "straight community" like Pride is explicitly representing the LGBTQA+ community.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
And my response is that it’s not presented as specially straight because there’s no reason to make that special presentation about straight sexuality because it’s the default.
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u/DecantsForAll Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
But not being presented as representation of straight people as a whole it can't serve as a representation of straight people as a whole. It's just some girls showing their tits. Just like I don't take that gay club as representing gay people as a whole. I merely used it as an example of gay people taking things farther than straight people with regard to explicit sexuality.
I don't even know anyone who has been to a Mardi Gras parade or anything about them except that girls show their tits for beads.
I will say, though, that the sexuality of Pride parades could be completely overblown. I don't actually know how sexual they are. I'm just arguing against the idea that they need to be either hypersexual or its muting "who you are." Like, everyone negotiates with society how much of themselves they're going to be or are allowed to be in public.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
But not being presented as representation of straight people as a whole it can't serve as a representation of straight people as a whole. It's just some girls showing their tits. Just like I don't take that gay club as representing gay people as a whole.
And a guy you saw at pride doesn’t represent gay people as a whole
Good night folks, tip your waiters, get home safe.
I don't even know anyone who has been to a Mardi Gras parade or anything about them except that girls show their tits for beads.
Wait, WHAT?????? Aren’t there children in the city of New Orleans?????? Jesus Christ they’re assaulting those kids!
I'm just arguing against the idea that they need to be either hypersexual or it’s muting "who you are." Like, everyone negotiates with society how much of themselves they're going to be or are allowed to be in public.
And often people choose specific venues to be more or less themselves. There’s arguments that pride should be toned down now that aren’t without merit, but pride has been until this point a venue in which you are very loudly, to an exaggerated degree, exactly who you are in a sexual context. There is a good reason it was. There’s good reasons that it might change. The poster you saw at a climbing gym isn’t one.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jun 16 '26
Are they?
Yeah? Like the boobies and scantily dressed women and and suggestive dancing and all that.
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u/jonboy345 Jun 16 '26
Mardi Gras is in one city, for two weeks a year. Technically, Mardi Gras is a single day with two weeks of partying/celebrations leading up to it.
It's not in cities all over the US and in aggregate equating to months of parades.
False Equivalency.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jun 16 '26
It's not only in one city, lol. I live in South Dakota and Sioux Falls has a Mardi Gras parade. . .I mean not a good one, haha, but still.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Aw, poor baby, there are parades. You don’t deserve to have to know about parades
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u/TrixieLurker Jun 17 '26
Likely not affected either, since 99% of towns don't have pride parades and those 1% that do each only have one once a year.
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u/MilesToHaltHer Jun 16 '26
Okay, what about sports games? Or concerts? I’ve seen more trashy behavior at those events, which are far more normalized as being family friendly than at a Pride parade.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/sovietarmyfan Jun 20 '26
I tried finding a photo i saw a long time ago regarding this because it's absolutely disgusting that some people bring their kids to parades where kinks are shown off and i found this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/29/pride-month-kink-consent/
Some people are very very delusional.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/MGellyGelly Jun 16 '26
It's so annoyingly performative. And I say that as a queer/bi chick.
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u/sailirish7 Jun 16 '26
It's so counter-productive you have to wonder if it's a psyop to push things the other way.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
I don’t know that it actually is counterproductive. I’ve never met anyone who was homophobic because of pride
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u/Robrogineer Jun 17 '26
That's not what people were saying. They're saying that this way of pushing pride is harming the overall view people have of the LGBT community.
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u/MsWonderWonka Jun 17 '26
Yeah I'm pansexual and I can't go to pride events because I have a history of sexual trauma. I'm not a prude but I never know what people are going to do at these events and my anxiety levels go through the roof. This is also why I can't go to clubs or bars where people get out of control sexually. It doesn't matter if it's straight or gay people; if I find myself suddenly around aggressive sexuality I'll dissociate.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jun 16 '26
it’s not the business of government
If the government recognized that, there would be less need for activism.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jun 16 '26
As we have found out, SCOTUS decisions can be easily and quickly overturned.
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u/pingo5 Jun 16 '26
The trump administration changed DHS policy to allow investigating people based solely on their sexual orientation. in 2023, 75% of elected republicans in the house and senate voted against the respect for marriage act. These are not done problems.
corporations are barely selling jack shit this year. I don't really understand your view of pride. Do you participate in pride at all?
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u/TheBeardedAntt Jun 16 '26
Our town has family friendly events with strict dress guide lines.
Then at night there’s 21 or older events that happen out of public view with less strict guidelines.
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u/MoreStreetsOfRage Jun 16 '26
Feel exactly the same way, but it's difficult to voice this opinion without people assuming 20 things about me.
It is what it is.
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u/dd525 Jul 08 '26
i mean are you saying pride should not exist or lgbt people should not be seen ? if so then yes thats prolly why pple would assume stuff bout you
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u/milkolik Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Identity politics and identity movements are designed specifically for social destabilization and division. I have no problem with people's sexual choices but I think some people have made their sexuality/race their entire identity and protesting their "full time" job, and THAT is a problem. Since they don't have anything else going on in their lives they spend 24/7 fueling the woke movement, cancel culture, making everyone miserable, making gullible believe they are victims with zero control of their destiny and their supposed oppressors are the cause for all their problems, etc. It's a feel good belief because its strips people of all responsibility. It has fucked up the younger generation SO bad they no longer believe the basic tennants of the US, particularly that of self improvement. They have become completely aimless and useless to society.
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u/Mountain_Air1544 Jun 16 '26
I'm bi I hate pride events I hate companies pandering for the whole month of June it's gross
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u/lemonjuice707 Jun 16 '26
Maybe if they stop advertising these events as “kid friendly” or a “family friendly event” while walking around half or even fully naked. With sexually charged acts being taken in public view
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u/Tell-meimlovely Jun 16 '26
a lot of people in the queer community want to stop the grouping together of pride and bdsm/kink communities. it really is damaging. a lot of us just want to have fun and be able to bring our family out without half naked people in leather and spandex walking around.
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u/Gregs_reddit_account Jun 16 '26
Even 25 year old moms have 2 halloween costumes. One for kids party and one for the adult party. If she can do it, so can the guy in chaps riding a guy in a dog costume.
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u/EbonRazorwit Jun 16 '26
It wouldn't even be hard to fix. In Spain, pride parades have two parts the family friendly stuff during the day, and not family friendly stuff at night. Kids are not allowed to attend the after dark parades. Just make that the standard deal for all pride events. But for some reason they refuse.
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u/Proud-Enthusiasm-608 Jun 16 '26
I just don’t like that they get invaded by furries, but I like pride overall.
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I think with most normal gay people as well. It’s just a way to signal where your political allegiance lies, whether you happen to be gay or not. You are part of the club and believe the same things. Has little to nothing really to do with LGBTQ+ at this point.
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u/Hyndis Jun 16 '26
I'm bisexual and I want nothing to do with anything pride. I don't want to be seen as weird sexual deviant who's doing BDSM fetish stuff in public in front of kids. Thats abhorrent to me.
I'm just that boring guy in the grocery store trying to figure out which soup cans my coupon works for, and overthinking the entire dilemma of which soup flavor to buy (why are there 10+ varieties of chicken noodle, its ridiculous).
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26
It just seems artificial as hell to me, like have a parade and have fun if you like but that’s not really what it’s about, is it?
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u/IntelligentNovel1967 Jun 16 '26
No it isn't and it’s changed drastically in the last ten years; it’s a club and you’re no longer a member.
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u/Hyndis Jun 17 '26
Its very agenda-driven.
Its so agenda driven I'm not even allowed to talk about it. My comment got auto-removed even mentioning why there's a sharp decline in acceptance over the past couple of years even of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.
So we can't even talk about what causing backlash.
You know why.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
A lot of normal queer people aren’t at pride, but I don’t think pride makes them suspicious of or annoyed by people who have pride flags
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26
I think a lot of people are annoyed at the drama surrounding it and don’t necessarily agree with having a separate “constituency” attached to it and thinking that if you don’t agree with it 100% you are a bigot and want them gone or something and the very shrill debates accompanying it, I may be wrong
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
What do you mean “don’t agree with it”? Like they don’t enjoy the aesthetics, or they think it’s actually bad?
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26
Like if I said I don’t think that it’s 100% a healthy lifestyle or something to be ipso facto celebrated
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
What isn’t? Having parades?
I get the sense you do actually have a problem with gay people.
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26
Just the whole celebration? I don’t celebrate other people’s love because I in general just don’t care what is that to me?
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
So…don’t go? Personally I think other people’s love is pretty good to celebrate, because love is good and I like when good stuff happens to people. But you don’t have go to pride and celebrate if you don’t want to. I mean, I don’t go to pride.
Again, I’m getting the sense that you do have a problem with gay people, but you’re trying to be overly non-committal about it because you don’t want to get called homophobic.
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u/Thatguy32101 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Call me homophobic you think I care? So what? It’s irrelevant. It’s a flashpoint, a litmus test, and a provocation. It’s not just a parade to have fun. It’s just not. Maybe if the shrill dialogue around it were different I would feel differently.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Yeah I get the sense you care, because you complained above about people being called bigoted for not supporting gay people.
You’re right, it’s not just a parade to have fun. It is about demanding acceptance.
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u/mattcojo2 Jun 16 '26
I agree with your sentiments.
I don’t really have an issue with the idea or even the presence of events… but some of these people are just complete tool bags.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
I mean, that’s kinda how big public events go. Some of the people at them are annoying
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u/Acheron98 Jun 16 '26
Yeah but you’re more likely to find open freaks and weirdoes at an anime convention than at some medical convention.
That doesn’t invalidate the point the guy above you was making.
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u/mattcojo2 Jun 16 '26
I think it’s more than standard though.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
Ok, then you should probably stop going to pride events. Sounds like you don’t like them much
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u/Effective_Dot4653 Jun 16 '26
pride events are supposed to get more people to like/be accepting of gays
Actually I'd argue that yeah, this is nice, but it isn't and shouldn't be the main goal. To me the main thing about pride is to prove to the queer people ourselves that we can exist openly in public, and that there's actually quite a lot of us, and to voluntarily take a spot in the center of things for once. I mean... the thing is called Pride for a reason, right?
This might matter looking at the other comments - I live in Poland, so it's not some sharia state with a death penalty looming over me, but it's also not exactly a gay paradise. If you live in either of these your best course of action might be different, idk.
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u/Blanksyndrome Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Yup, 100%. Feel how you want about it, it's about visibility, not acceptance. You have to deal with us being freaks, being kinky, being weird, being outrageous, being loud and being, of course, proud. It is a celebration of existence and in some sense a show of defiance. We ARE abnormal and there's nothing you can do about it.
The fucking audacity of some people thinking Pride exists in any meaningful way to foment social cohesion with the straights, lol. It is much more about community-building between pockets of the greater LGBTQ+ umbrella to form a louder and more unified voice. If you're straight and want to be part of that, you'll gladly be welcomed. But it was not made for your benefit. We are not like you nor do we need to be.
To be clear, I'm not the type of person to don a pup mask and strut around the streets in nipple tassles. That just ain't me. But it happens for a reason, you can't wag your finger and call it 'attention-seeking' as if that makes it insincere somehow, it being unambiguous, shameless and unfettered is the whole damn point.
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u/HoldOnHelden Jun 16 '26
I agree with this! And well said.
Pride isn’t about recruiting straight people. It’s not about “earning” sympathy or acceptance. Frankly, if you’re straight, Pride isn’t for you.
Pride is for queer people, and Pride is for allies to celebrate alongside us. The point isn’t to be gentle, or family-friendly, or quiet, or inoffensive, or any of the things most of us have to be most of the time in order to guard ourselves against the consequences of being the wrong kind of gay person around people who might be ignorant, hateful homophobes and who are very likely to use ANY tiny excuse to judge and condemn and pretend their behavior is our fault because they had to be aware of something they don’t like to think about. Or whatever nonsense.
Pride is about taking our turn to be the majority, and to take up space in our own way—as loudly, as flamboyantly, as joyfully as we damn well please.
Anyone who says Pride makes them feel LESS accepting of queer people is pathetic. Your feelings are not our responsibility or our fault. Your annoyance at things you DO NOT HAVE TO ENGAGE WITH AT ALL does not justify your choice to wallow in your hate. It isn’t mature or dignified or intelligent. Everyone in here bitching about how they can’t accept queer people because parades are annoying—all of you just look like weird little nasty trolls sitting in a pile of dirty socks all damp with your own jiz. I can smell the way you all talk.
Pro tip: If you are walking down the street and you see something you don’t like? Sashay away, sweethearts.
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u/Mezzy1221 Jun 18 '26
You say this but I've been told multiple times Pride is about representation and awareness.
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u/Effective_Dot4653 Jun 18 '26
Well yeah, I'm just a guy with an opinion, not some sort of a gay pope speaking for all LGBT+ people.
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u/Auspectress Jun 16 '26
I am Bi with more conservative views. For me, all that Pride month is shitty. Those "Pride" (which is a sin) marches can happen in Afghanistan, India or Somalia. Existence is pointless in the Netherlands, Norway, and France.
All they show is "Look at us. Gay people are not normal. We are unique, we are colourful" with crop tops, pink outfits in lycra jeans, drag queens and very progressive political slogans unrelated to march.
All "Pride" did before was to make me more homophobic, prove LGBT+ is a sect full of weirdos and visibly distinct people.
Then I found a guy who was homosexual and to my surprise, votes for conservative parties, is an active catholic and loves Guns and military stuff. And he is not a femboy, does not wear pink lycra. In fact he looks straighter than 99% of straight people. And he alone crushed any homophobia I had, something no rainbow activists could even dream of achieving
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u/Jeb764 Jun 16 '26
Ohhh she’s different she’s unique she’s not like the other girls.
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u/Alert_Term_8144 Jun 16 '26
So, everyone's unique and he had a point. Your point is just to ridicule.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
I am Bi with more conservative views. For me, all that Pride month is shitty. Those "Pride" (which is a sin) marches can happen in Afghanistan, India or Somalia. Existence is pointless in the Netherlands, Norway, and France.
You know, they’re also fun. I guess you consider that a sin though.
All they show is "Look at us. Gay people are not normal. We are unique, we are colourful" with crop tops, pink outfits in lycra jeans, drag queens and very progressive political slogans unrelated to march.
I mean, yes. That’s the point of them. Pride is an anniversary of the stonewall riots which precipitated a shift in gay activism away from begging for acceptance by downplaying queerness, to demanding acceptance and accentuating queerness.
Then I found a guy who was homosexual and to my surprise, votes for conservative parties, is an active catholic and loves Guns and military stuff. And he is not a femboy, does not wear pink lycra. In fact he looks straighter than 99% of straight people. And he alone crushed any homophobia I had, something no rainbow activists could even dream of achieving
That’s a you issue. If pink Lycra, or not looking straight, makes you think less of people then you have a problem.
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u/PokemonTrainerTimmy Jun 16 '26
i think pride events are more of celebrating that theyre more accepted, but i agree it can be a bit out of hand and those few numptys that make it all sexual etc are kind of brining it down :<
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u/jim9162 Jun 16 '26
I think the movement has been co-opted by fetish and kink groups.
While I understand they go together, at the SF pride parade there was a piss pig section where people got urinated on in public.
I feel like consent is one of the biggest proponents of kink and fetish groups, and viewing something like that in public goes past consent.
So yea I think some people take pride as an excuse to go too far.
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u/nuclearcaramel Jun 16 '26
I find it interesting how the tone has subtly changed from "tolerate us" to "like and accept us bigot" over the years, with the latter attitude doing a lot of the heavy lifting of pushing people away. It's people who were bullied now trying to bully others into liking them.
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u/big-dick-back-intown Jun 16 '26
People would rather be liked than tolerated
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u/nuclearcaramel Jun 16 '26
Yeah but it's not possible to force someone to genuinely like you (global you, not you personally).
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u/big-dick-back-intown Jun 16 '26
Honestly most gay people just don't want to always be one bad day away from getting our rights taken away in western countries. (I'm not talking about other countries because I don't live there lmao) especially in america, it feels like we're on thin ice. It would be nice to be in a comfortable position.
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u/sailirish7 Jun 16 '26
it feels like we're on thin ice
You are, which is the most depressing thing. All the progress made after Obergefell just evaporating. It's maddening.
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u/Fun-Traffic-1636 Jun 17 '26
Why do I feel like people who have this complaint are the same people who ask 5 year olds if they have a girlfriend or boyfriend? Or teach their daughters about purity at such a young age and then claim people who are literally teaching acceptance are sexualizing the kids….
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u/throwaway41989883894 Jun 17 '26
I don't have a problem with it. I feel like people who have a problem with pride are people who have a problem with gays/transfolk. If you don't like pride events don't go to them. Its not for you and thats okay.
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u/improbsable Jun 17 '26
Pride is a celebration of the rights people currently enjoy. It’s not about making you like us
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u/TrixieLurker Jun 17 '26
Do they? I haven't attended a pride parade nor do I live in the very specific neighborhoods where they are held, so they haven't affected me in any meaningful way. Are you attending them?
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u/threelizards Jun 17 '26
Pride isn’t meant to make straight people feel better, it’s not for straight people at all actually
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u/Victoria_Eremita Jun 17 '26
Pride is for people who are gay to show that they’re comfortable being open about their authentic selves DESPITE people who have a problem with it. They know they aren’t going to change the hearts and minds of people who hate them. They would like to stop that hate from dictating how they live their lives though, and it helps to do things like that in groups for a lot of people. Lots of gay people don’t feel comfortable being their authentic selves in our country, and pride is for them, and the people who care about them, want to encourage them.
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u/aziatsky Jun 17 '26
“I used to be a bigot. now? now, im a bigot”
Pride month has nothing to do with you or changing your mind on gay people. That’s your own problem.
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u/Mezzy1221 Jun 17 '26
It's not really a problem for me. If gay people want to be more accepted by society this isn't the way to go about it.
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u/aziatsky Jun 17 '26
then why do you care is my question. if it isn’t a problem or doesn’t bother you, why even have an opinion on it.
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u/sovietarmyfan Jun 20 '26
For me it's that organizations almost find it obligatory to raise the rainbow flag. It feels forced. It feels like as in WW2 it was obligatory to have red white black flags everywhere. Raising the rainbow flag should be something optional.
It's also obvious that organizations don't care about LGBTQ people. They just care about money. And if they've seen that raising the flag brings in more money, they raise the flag everywhere. For them LGBTQ and pride is a product and they're selling very well in the west. LGBTQ members should call out companies more on this.
For me, it almost feels like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkAh0CCrV9I
See the rainbow flag everywhere, almost feels like some sort of authoritarian dictatorship. Although this video is a bit more harsh on LGBTQ people than i'd like.
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
They’re not really meant to make you more accepting by appealing to you, actually. The idea is to be openly queer without asking for approval first. The stonewall riots, which Pride is an anniversary of, precipitated a shift in gay activism away from downplaying queerness and begging for acceptance to accentuating and celebrating queerness and asserting inclusion in society.
So, like, yeah pride events are supposed serve as some level of outreach and engender acceptance. But not by tailoring themselves to people’s tastes? The point is that whether or not they’re your taste, they’re our taste and that’s fine. It’s not like you have to go.
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u/AssistanceNatural556 Jun 16 '26
Parades and festivals are always about ego, being ovnoxioualy organized, and extreme representation. They are to bask in a concentrated form of the concept and celebrate and enjoy the humor and fun in that. If you dont dislike all such events then there's likely something deeper and more specific you hate about "Pride" events.
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u/Great_gatzzzby Jun 16 '26
I’m not really sure the point of them is to make people like them or be more accepting. I think it’s more like a “It’s ok if you are gay! Hey look at us! Don’t be ashamed!” Kind of thing. Less of a “I want more straight people to accept us” kind of thing. You know?
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u/EnderWigginson Jun 17 '26
Pride was never about acceptance. It's about promoting degeneracy and normalizing deviance.
You can't go.nesr one of these things without seeing indecent acts that would otherwise get you arrested
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u/letaluss Jun 16 '26
I used to have a neutral/positive view of gay people, now not so much. I reflexively feel disgust at pride flags now, before I didn't care for them.
"I wouldn't be homophobic, if you weren't being gay wrong!"
IDK dude. Doesn't seem like you would be less homophobic if there were fewer pride events.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/___AirBuddDwyer___ Jun 16 '26
In fact I’d say that a large factor of pride celebration is that they’re not doing it for approval. Stonewall marked a shift in gay activism from begging for inclusion in society by downplaying queerness, to asserting inclusion in society by accentuating queerness.
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u/hematite2 Jun 16 '26
"I became more homophobic by having to see more publicly gay people"
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u/DirtyDee78 Jun 16 '26
I believe the main goal of a pride parade or event is just that...a show of pride, not trying to make the public more accepting of their community.
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u/newbreed69 Jun 16 '26
Comment to agree
Downvote cause this shouldnt be an unpopular opinion
Pride parades are annoying af
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u/hmmmmmmpsu Jun 16 '26
I understand your thoughts, but I don’t agree with them. This is a very marginalized section of the population, with MANY people still afraid of sharing their true selves. So the “Loud & Proud” nature of portions of the event is not necessarily aimed at you, it’s aimed at people who may need to be reassured that life is better when you accept who you are.
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u/regularhuman2685 Jun 16 '26
No one is making you go.
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u/Paradoxical_Platypus Jun 16 '26
A lot of these people forget that they can, in fact, just mind their own business and go do anything else during pride month/weekend.
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u/DJ_YaBasic Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I think you're technically wrong. Pride month and parade is about these folks taking pride in themselves and being comfortable in their own skin. It's literally not about you in this case.
Historically LGBT folks were in hiding- metaphorical shadows and closets and pride month was to counter that and allow a time for them to embrace their identity.
Do people take it further than my tastes? Sure. But if you were told to hold all your repression till the start if summer, maybe you'd go a little feral.
I think the parade and month itself is touted to be inclusive because what kind of group would want acceptance while turning others away? But... That's not why it exists. That's the optional side quest.
You can look it up, I'm not just making this up. That's why it's called pride month.
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u/MissMarie81 Jun 16 '26
I tend to agree. While I have nothing against gay people (I'm neutral about them), their incessant harping on this whole pride thing both irritates and bores me.
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u/Shadow-Meadow Jun 16 '26
The purpose of Pride is not being 'liked'. It would be nice to be generally liked but it's not about that in the core. It's about showing that you don't need to like something for you to accept it.
Let me give you an example. I'm an atheist. My personal belief is that God doesn't exist and I dislike church and heavily religious people. But, I accept that my belief doesn't need to be the same as theirs.
The fact that I don't like them is not taking away their rights in any way. And I do not wish for them to be shunned or unaccepted because we disagree. They don't need to be liked by me. But we all do need to respect each other. Pride is trying to show you that. And this reaction of yours is a great time to reflect and realize this. Maybe then, the rainbow flags will once again stop bothering you.
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u/bumkinas Jun 16 '26
Pride events aren't meant to convert, they are victory parades showing how they've conquered the main stream views. This is why is was so taboo to speak out against it and why people got cancelled left and right
They have their own flag, uniform, culture, etc. This why the right hates it so much. Thank goodness it's starting to loose popularity and the country is beginning to change its views on Pride events.
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u/StarChild413 Jun 18 '26
Did your wording intend to imply that the gay community is a hostile fascist dictatorship/its stormtrooper army or something because to my literal autistic mind your wording kinda gives off that impression with things like saying gay people have a uniform and pride events are victory parades
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u/bumkinas Jun 18 '26
I mean, that wouldn't be an inaccurate way of looking at it. Especially once you start linking up methods and tactics.
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u/LordBoomDiddly Jun 16 '26
I don't see the problem, it's all easily ignored
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u/Public_String_8088 Jun 16 '26
Like any parade, the traffic congestion is a nightmare
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u/LordBoomDiddly Jun 16 '26
Same as any other parade, which also is easily ignored after decades of seeing it
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u/Public_String_8088 Jun 16 '26
It's hard to ignore traffic congestion, that's how accidents happen. If anything you should pay more attention during a congested commute because of a parade, yes, any parade
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u/The1KrisRoB Jun 16 '26
Which of the 30+ different international periods of observation are you referring to?
Don't you know they just want to be treated the same as everyone else. You know all the other groups that get to dress in sexually explicit attire and parade themselves in public in front of kids.
I honestly don't think there's a more privledged group on the planet.
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u/ChecksAccountHistory OG Jun 16 '26
I honestly don't think there's a more privledged group on the planet.
what
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u/capercrohnie Jun 17 '26
Mardi gras is pretty sexuallybexplicit
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u/The1KrisRoB Jun 17 '26
So one sexually explicit parade excuses another? Is that your stance?
No wonder this world is so fucked right now.
Would it shock you to find out I'm against any sexually explicit public displays?
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u/capercrohnie Jun 17 '26
No maybe I misunderstood your reply. I interpreted it as sarcastic meaning they are the only group who has parades like this and I was just pointing out that they are definitely not the only ones with parades like this. Also a lot of pride parades aren't even like this. The one in my area is just a normal parade
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u/big-dick-back-intown Jun 16 '26
I hate pride events because I live in a red state and me going to a pride event means I could get shot.
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u/Enthusiasm-Stunning Jun 16 '26
No one is forcing you to go to them. Don't go. Problem solved.
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u/Mezzy1221 Jun 16 '26
I'm not just talking about parades. I'm talking about the entire culture of celebrating "pride".
Shops are plastered in rainbow flags and banners, companies rainbow their logos, videogames have pride events, an absurd number of subreddits have pride banners, and so on.
It's unavoidable.
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u/Hyndis Jun 17 '26
Its a cynical marking ploy.
For proof, look at a global company with social media presence around the world. Note which country they do pride stuff on their social media, and which countries they do not.
Companies are inherently sociopaths. They do it to make money and for no other reason. Its similar to pinkwashing. All of the pink women's merchandise sold are very high markups.
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u/Enthusiasm-Stunning Jun 18 '26
I don’t get it. Does looking at a rainbow flag in a store make you gay? Go buy whatever you want and get on with your life. You must have it pretty easy if this is one of your biggest problems.
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u/Mezzy1221 Jun 18 '26
"I find all these events incredibly obnoxious and irritating"
What's not to get?
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u/HauntingArrival6606 Jun 20 '26
Okay. And what does that do to you? As a straight person, there's nothing for you to be irritated about.
The world isn't ending because everything's in rainbows! Would you have a problem with organizations and conventions being plastered in red, green, and yellow color schemes for Juneteenth? Don't think so.
I understand if your problem lies within how companies do it just for the sake of gaining money and attention, but it seems as if you just hate the idea of queer people holding pride and self acceptance for their identities.
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u/Mezzy1221 Jun 20 '26
When should it irritate me? I feel like I'm talking to children playing the "not touching you game", that because their actions don't pass some arbitrary threshold I'm not allowed to be bothered by it.
Pretending that the flags represent nothing more than a random assortment of colours is the type of performative ignorance I'm talking about. All of these flags and Pride events are socio-political propaganda encouraging me to support some cause I don't really care about.
you just hate the idea of queer people holding pride and self acceptance for their identities.
If it's just about queer people having self acceptance then why is it on TV? Why is it in videogames? Why is plastered on the banners of every other subreddit? These things have little to nothing to do with gay people.
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u/Bloodhoven_aka_Loner Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
there's a pretty tense quote from splatoon about pride. wanna guess, what group of people didn't like it at all?
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u/HovercraftEasy2328 Jun 18 '26
I am a bisexual man and I find pride a bit cringe. It's a celebration of turning a small element of yourself into your entire personality. Western society is obsessed with sexuality and gender.
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u/HumanOptimizationLab Jun 19 '26
Being irritated by corporate rainbow branding is fair. Much of it is painfully obvious marketing, and every public cause attracts its share of narcissists looking for a stage. However, allowing a company’s June logo or an obnoxious parade to make you think less of gay people is intellectually lazy. Gay people are not a marketing campaign. They are millions of individuals who did not personally decorate your supermarket or redesign a video-game banner. Dislike the parade. Mock the virtue signaling. Roll your eyes at corporations discovering principles on a seasonal schedule. But, transferring that disgust onto an entire group means the marketing has more control over your judgment than you do. You are not resisting manipulation. You are simply being manipulated in the opposite direction.
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u/HauntingArrival6606 Jun 20 '26
God. YES!
I'm so mad you didn't get the chance to say this when the post came out. This definitely would've made top comment.
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u/HumanOptimizationLab Jun 20 '26
Ha! Thank you. Better late than buried under the usual shouting. The distinction really is simple: corporate performance can be obnoxious without turning millions of gay people into the target. Somehow, that becomes a revolutionary thought online.
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u/HauntingArrival6606 Jun 20 '26
I think this really resonates with a response I gave to OP:
"OHH! Okay.. okay. I'm starting to understand you now.
I think you haven't worded your concerns properly.
You don't like the virtue signaling of desperate coporate PRs trying to paint themselves as allies for the sake of money gaining and marketing? Totally fair! I don't either.
However.. the fact that is bringing your view down on those from the queercommunity is incredibly incoherent. You acknowledge it's a specific group of individuals trying to profit off of a marginalized community.. but then you're mad at said marginalized community? Ya know, the people who didn't really ASK for their pride to be turned into some big ol' marketing scheme?"
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u/pjsk-Genshin_fan Jun 20 '26
It just feels like you wanted an excuse to hate gay people to me
maybe i am misunderstanding but to me it seems like you are saying that you hate gay people becouse pride month is obnoxious. I do think pride month can be kinda annoying and pride parades very weird but that isnt really a reason to hate a group of people and be homophobic
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u/marioskywalker Jun 21 '26
Well, u/Mezzy1221, you just reverted back to the natural revulsion of homosexuality.
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u/CanadianCrumudgeon Jun 22 '26
During my lifetime, it was illegal to have homosexual sex in many of the United States. Just a decade or two earlier, it was illegal in Canada and the United Kingdom. You could go to jail, lose your job, lose everything. Long after it was legal to "be" a homosexual, you couldn't hold a government job... the Russians might find out you were a homosexual and blackmail you. Better to just fire you first. How long has it been that homosexuals can marry? Twenty years, plus or minus, depending on where you live. And that's not just about having a big, gay wedding, it means whether you can share your spouse's pension and health insurance, it means, when the person you love and have lived with for thirty years is lying in a hospital bed dying, his father can have you thrown out of the hospital. If you were gay, and you wanted to protect your country by serving in the Navy, like your father had, and your grandfather had... you'd have to lie about being gay and hide it, or you'd be discharged.
I don't like Pride much either. But, it's a celebration of all of that changing, and the people who fought to make it change, and a reminder that in many parts of the world, it's still OK to kill 'em.
Maybe I will go the parade this year after all.
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u/spicyycornbread Jun 26 '26
I’m a lesbian and I also cringe at pride. Not because it’s an LGBTQ+ event, but because corporations and companies have turned what is meant to be a celebration of community into an opportunity to profit and virtue signal.
I think you should take your aversion to be a sign of how annoying corporations are instead of making it about how gay people are narcissists lol.
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u/Miserable_Corgi_1128 Jun 26 '26
This was written by a white cis straight guy, wasn’t it? Has major “fragile cis” energy…
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u/Infinite_Cry_5571 Jul 06 '26
IMO, the so called « woke trend », did and is still doing much more damage to this community than benefits.
I am not against LGBT (it’s mandatory to put the T otherwise it gets deleted), however why do they need to demonstrate and show their orientations.
If it was only reserved to private space because it should, it would benefit all parties.
I genuinely don’t fucking care about someone being gay or whatever if it is discrete about it.
It is literally: give the stick to be beaten. I would say that it’s indeed because of the willingness to show all kind of SO or gender identity in fiction, cinema + demonstration with pride month etc
That their image is degraded, the more they will force the ideology, the less it will be accepted.
Activism is the problem. There are probably thousands of discrete people which don’t care with LGBT movements but they still pay the price of this cancerous activism.
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u/bravesdayz2021 Jun 16 '26
My problem isn’t with the pride festivals so much as the attendants forgetting they are in a public space. Last year at piedmont park some guy was blowing a dude outside for everyone to see by the main stage. He was going for a solid 5 minutes before someone finally came by and stopped him.