this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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I have the same opinion. Pride parades often hurt the public image of the LGBT community. At least ban the leather fetish shit.
Someone else once said that they love humans, just ban all jews.
Leather is only a fetish because some people decided that it is. There is nothing inherently wrong with leather.
Ban leather fetish? You are the definition of ignorance. That is what is hurting the public image. Do you also go to a rave and tell them to dress differently? All that neon clothing is hurting your eyes? Or to any demo with people dressing as unicorns?
You underestimate the public. Who cares about leather? We care about people being ignorant dicks, about people who are obnoxious and about people who are trying to harm others. Not leather.
There is no difference between a business suit, a nipple piercing, a mini-skirt or a gag-ball. The person wearing those are what counts.
People trying to ban others, that's just sad. As long as decency laws are obeyed, who are you to judge? Fetish only exists because of ignorance. Otherwise, they would be hobbies.
Lmao can you even hear yourself speak?
Try walking up to a conservative asking for their acceptance while wearing a nipple piercing, a leather strap-on and a gag ball, and see how they respond...
You see what you did there? You equated having slightly higher standards and self respect in public (regardless of what you do in private) with conforming to extreme puritanical standards. These are not the same.
Read this and then answer my question: If the purpose of Pride parades is to gain acceptance for the LGBT+ community, who are we trying to gain acceptance from? Did you ever once stop to think about your audience, and what might help them understand you a little easier?
A Pride parade is a performance, and the audience is conservatives. How well do you think our reviews are going lately?
This is for you too my friend.
Get fucking real.
Of course "hear myself speak". Do you? Thinking in black and white, downgrading people for having values that they grew up with, coining them conservatives, without even knowing what that term means.
When I was a kid, a banker wasn't even allowed to turn up their sleeves in summer. Tattoos, piercings and colored hair was an instant dismissal. The same conservatives are in power still, and all that has changed. I've seen bankers with face-tatoos, braided hair in multiple colors and piercings, being openly gay. Acceptance is already here.
But pride parades are not about acceptance. They are some sort of "in your face, we are here, deal with it" gig. Like street gangs wearing colors. Not hiding. Those things only work when nobody suffers because of them.
That's how acceptance works. You don't walk up and ask for it. Acceptance happens by saturation and demonstrating that things are fine.
The problem is, street gangs cause crime and lately, pride people are just obnoxious. It's not the leather, it's the people wearing it, and how they behave. Demanding acceptance, even trying to force it. Calling others names and blaming them for all their troubles.
You don't ask for it. You don't force it. You INTEGRATE. Bit by bit. 40 years ago gay people were in hiding, pretending to be straight. Not getting jobs. Risking being beat up or being lynched.
Now, you have Trans school plays and teachers that are openly gay. The last two generations are imprinted by the fast pace of the internet. That is a new thing, people do not change that fast. But is that respected at all? No.
Internet and mobile phones weren't a thing until I was twenty-five. Things changed over decades, not years back then. What you call conservatives are simply people not catching up that fast. You've never seen a real conservative. And by the way you are talking, you must be believing that the world has always been like it is now. But it changed in the last 25 years like it didn't do since the industrial revolution 250 years ago. You seem to have no idea how far acceptance has come and how ridiculous the term conservative is. Show me a single thing from 25 years ago that's still the same.
I did walk up to plenty of so-called conservatives, and I always got their attention, and often their approval. Not always. It is about the way one does it. Being condescending, demanding, negative and juvenile won't help. Playing a role or fighting other people's fights also doesn't help. Fight for yourself and help others do the same. Individual by individual, that is how things work.
You seem to be under the impression I think pride parades are a bad thing in general b/c I said I dislike how they are now.
Did the strategy you mentioned work well for its historical moment? FUCKING YES. Absolutely. You're right that we made tons of progress that was previously unprecedented.
But guess what? We're in a completely different historical moment today... and now we are regressing.
I argue that Conservatives today are more polarized and therefore more dangerous than the ones you knew 25 years ago.
And do you know how I know we're regressing? This year, the ACLU reports 479 anti-LGBT bills currently being considered to be passed as laws in the U.S. in 2024.
That's why I'm making such a big deal... because you old sweeties who did a lot of hard work for all of us young queers are going to have to adapt to the new situation! Because the strategy that worked for the previous 25 years is NO 👏 LONGER 👏 SERVING 👏 US... And we must grow out of it, or risk facing the worst retaliation ever known to LGBT+ in the history of the US.
I'm telling you all your hard work is about to be undone, and you can't stop judging, condescending, and blindly telling me I'm wrong about what's clearly staring us all in the face...
So respectfully... grow up a little, please! We have work to do...
idk why you're getting downvoted tbh https://www.theonion.com/gay-pride-parade-sets-mainstream-acceptance-of-gays-bac-1819566014
Oh man, that's not the gotcha you think it is, The Onion is a satire site, they're actually parodying opinions like yours, did you even read this so called proof? You certainly didn't check the authenticity of the website in question.
Not even that far down was an obvious give away: "The parade, organized by the Los Angeles Gay And Lesbian And Bisexual And Transvestite And Transgender Alliance (LAGALABATATA)"
Onion article or not it's a 2001 post, which says a lot in it's own right.
You're right, we should all stop watching George Carlin b/c he's been dead since 2008. Nothing he says could be relevant anymore, right?
How was the gay rights movement back then? If memory serves correctly, not great!!
And how is the LGBT+ movement doing today?
Hmm, let's see... the ACLU reports 479 anti-LGBT bills currently being considered to be passed as laws in the U.S. in 2024.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to wake the fuck up and realize the current strategy is NOT 👏 FUCKING 👏 WORKING 👏
Wake up and smell the flowers, because they're still growing on the fresh graves of my murdered trans friends.
And your opinion is that the best option is to turn tail and sit pretty for the cishets?
Don't tell me to wake the fuck up and diminish me, soapboxing about your murdered trans friends. I am trans, I'm close to people who have had to flee their states, fallen victim to (tw: a lot)>!employment discrimination, loss of medical care, reversion of changed ID gender markers, assault, rape, homelessness due to familial rejection.!<
So while I'm glad you can feel good about yourself wanting to sanitize pride parades and events. I assure you that is not the issue. It's satanic panic all over again, we're lucky it's not the AIDS crisis on top of it. Instead it's a bunch of puppets who lap up their anti trans propaganda. Go listen to some conservative "talking points" and you'll quickly realize there is no rationalizing with these people. There is no room for civil discussion.
Don't tell me to wake the fuck up, and to "smell the flowers" until you've written hundreds of letters to your state house of representatives. Only to be met with a paltry two responses, with only one being a truly heartfelt response.
There's one important thing to never forget: Armed queers bash back. Don't ever forget it. Stay safe out there.
I actually agree with you, pride parades are not the issue. Just one of many.
The real issue is leftists can't cooperate with each other these days. We are too busy dividing each other into smaller and smaller "in-groups" and "out-groups" using arbitrary criteria no one can agree on, while conservatives are as loyal and united as ever.
We are all about to be f*cking steamrolled, especially if a certain orange man wins the next election.
That's why I'm urging you to wake up. Not to try to be condescending. But because we have a lot of fucking work to do, and everyone in this thread seems convinced that things are just fine and dandy how they are!
Lmao you think I don't know the Onion is satire? c'mon... you think I was born yesterday?
Satire is just as effective, if not more effective, at conveying points as anything else. Hence why comedians alive today are the only living philosophers.
When did I classify this as "proof"? I'm waiting...
You might be born yesterday if you think satire directly saying your own talking points is effective at proving those points. I feel like you just googled "pride sets back gay movement" and either went with the first link, or after finding out that there is seemingly no evidence or any form of actual research to back up your claim, you went with a satire website.
If someone replies to someone saying "idk why people are disagreeing with you" and then provides a link to a website, that strongly suggests to me that they're giving proof as to why the people who are disagreeing are wrong.
Hahaha you're doing the strawman fallacy, my friend.
You've built up a straw man in your head so you can knock it down.
Every one of your assumptions is incorrect.
This is one of my favorite Onion articles of all time, and I refer to it frequently when I'm on this topic.
How bout you take a break from judging and hating on internet strangers for no reason?
Nothing I said is using a different argument to the one we started with, we've only been talking about using a satire website to prove a point, I'm not seeing where this strawman is.
Judging sure, hating not so much, but even if I was, maybe you should take your own advice and stop judging and hating on not only pretty much everyone you've replied to here, but basically everyone who goes to and supports pride.
Anyway, this isn't going to go anywhere, assuming what you've said about your life in other posts is true then I'm sorry you've had to experience that and even though I disagree, I can see why you'd form the opinion you have, I hope things are either better or will get better for you soon.
Ok, since you were nice to me in the last part, I'm going to try and be patient with you.
Let me try and summarize how this conversation went so far:
Now it's my chance to reply. And I could say: show me one place in this entire thread where I've been judgmental or hateful of anyone here.
Have I been patronizing/condescending in some of my replies? Regrettably, yes, out of frustration at not getting my point across. But I never judged and I never hated on any of these passionate queers who are downvoting me to oblivion.
I'm trying to help you see that you were judging based on unwarranted assumptions, and now reacting defensively when I called you out for it.
So thank you for admitting you were judging. But please don't accuse me of doing things I didn't do.
Edit: And I was wrong about the Strawman in your case, I apologize. I've seen so many comments use it in this thread it all started to blur after a while. Your logical fallacies were Ad Hominem and False Comparison.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain it and apologising for being wrong, I'll also apologise for making assumptions that were wrong and for being unpleasant towards you.
I'll explain my position, I made the assumption because whenever someone posts an onion article to back up their point/give proof of something (I still feel like that's how your message came off, but since you're being reasonable now I don't really have any reason to doubt your claim) it's in full seriousness and not realising it's a satire site, and due to how you were replying to everyone else I didn't really see the need to be pleasant about it as you weren't exactly being pleasant to everyone else. Unfortunately on the internet, I've found when someone is acting like you were they're generally unpleasant people who are just trying to stir things up and/or troll, but I figured if what you revealed in some other replies were true (it's not exactly uncommon for trolls to lie) I could understand your position. I didn't come here to argue your point, just to poke fun at you for linking an onion article, hence why I was dropping it after a few messages.
I didn't feel like I was being defensive, I felt like your message was somewhat hypocritical as I felt like I wasn't treating you much differently than you were treating everyone else, but I might be wrong about that, I'm not the best at reading these things from messages especially to/from strangers.
Like I said before, I disagree with your point about pride, but I didn't come here to argue that and I don't feel like we're likely to change each others mind, but I'm up for a bit of a friendly/cordial discussion about it if you want, but I'll probably only reply once or twice a day, just saying that as to set an expectation as I'm not on here often and obviously totally fine if you don't want to.
Sorry for the huge message and likely terrible grammar, I'm glad we could be more reasonable towards each other, I feel like that's rare on the internet these days.
That's kind of you to offer. Could you please let me know what you think of this?
Thank you for being willing to discuss it!
Edit: I previously wrote a longer part of this asking if you had advice for how to better approach this topic with the community but I already know the answer. I need to be more patient with folks and respond to their talking points directly instead of getting frustrated with them that they're not understanding mine, even if they seem really off topic...
It's actually surprising how much easier it is to talk to some conservatives than some leftists. Conservatives will just tell you what they think, and leftists will go on a thousand tangents before getting to the point 😅 I guess I'm learning here what it's like talking to me, because I see everyone else making the same mistakes. Defaulting to extremes and accusing me of things I never said, without giving me the benefit of the doubt. Then again, that's sort of how people on the Internet are in general... wdyt?