Untitled

And remember how Adam later turned out to be a complete self serving monster and the person who stood up for him in that moment was killed by him? Meanwhile ghira is in charge of the WF again while giving no indication they he’s changed?

If you’ll all pardon my Americentrism for a moment, the amount, visibility, and flamboyance of Pride merch available in clothing, home goods, and comestibles stores is a DIRECT reflection of how safe it is to be queer in public in the United States.

How? Simple. Out groups aren’t profitable. If you’re not “acceptable” in the current social climate, big franchise businesses will not market to you. (Prime example - Look how quickly Target dropped all their Pride merch after having been wall-to-wall rainbows every June for almost a decade prior.)

Sure, capitalism sucks and being viewed as an exploitable marketing demographic isn’t a fun concept.

HOWEVER.

The grim truth is that being normalized enough to be considered profitable by corporations IS A GOOD THING in terms of the barometer of social acceptance.

Same thing goes for smaller businesses that throw kitschy Pride events or even just put a token rainbow flag in the window or somewhere inside the shop. That’s a level of acceptance that DID NOT EXIST thirty years ago, and I can tell you because I was there.

The fact that we can scoff and bitch about being an exploitable marketing demographic nowadays means we have made GIGANTIC strides since the 1990s. It also speaks to the fact that the drive and the conversation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance are continuing. And getting louder.

You can be cynical about it if you want. But I will take a store that puts out lip-service rainbow merch over a world that pretends we don’t exist any day of the week. Because that will always mean something.

I don’t expect to see anything in my local supermarket this summer. My council will not be flying the pride flag this year. Neither will my library, which a few years ago had six different pride flags outside its building including trans, ace, and intersex.

Thankfully for my own safety I’m not clockable. Not everyone is so lucky.

republicans hate black/brown/poor people with the white hot intensity of 10,000 suns

And if you're wondering why I bring this up on this post: there's a mountain in Phoenix that used to be named for a slur for Native women. It's been renamed to honor a female Native military hero.

Now whatever your own feelings on the military, we can all agree that honoring our veterans is a big deal in this country, and that it's one a lot of the right wing at least claims to love.

There are people here who still insist on calling it the old name "because they only did it for woke."

Imagine! Yes, they did pick a Native woman on purpose because the former name was disrespectful to Native women. But it's not like they went "we are naming this after Random Diné Woman Jane Smith." They picked a significant and accomplished military figure! People are now proudly using the slur specifically because it's a slur.