i get that americans love their cultural imperialism, but it really does piss me off that june is “international” pride month just because something happened in the united states.
in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.
But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.
our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.
anyway, happy pride, americans. i’m truly sorry that most of you don’t see the negative impact your nation’s culture has on the rest of the world. and to the rest of the world reading this, try searching for your own country and culture’s queer history, don’t accept the american narratives as your own. we deserve our own histories divorced from the cultural hegemony of the USA.
this post is closing in on 10k and it’s really quite enlightening reading through the notes.
the most frequent reactions are from people from Not America agreeing that the cultural force of american pride has detracted in some tangible way from their knowledge or recognition of their own history. there’s so many links and references in the notes now, for so many different places. i had a scroll through some of them, that i could find versions of in english. the world has such a rich queer history, and i am inspired by all of the people saying they’re going to go and research more of their own histories. there have been resources shared from all six permanently inhabited continents (none from antartica, yet…), including a lot (relative to the usual zero) from the regions most frequently glossed over in our global queer histories; africa, the middle east, southeast asia, the pacific, and south america. every single person who’s shared a queer historical figure’s name, or a book or other source, or a historical event from their country or culture is doing an important thing by helping to dismantle the US pride hegemony.
the next most frequent reactions are from americans pissing on the poor, and claiming that either it’s not their fault individually because [nebulous reason missing the point] and/or that i’m racist (someone even said fascist lmao?) because the two people i mentioned were Black and latin american… it’s not the fault of those two women nor myself that americans have chosen their faces and names to put at the front of their imperialist pride. cultural imperialism doesn’t have to LOOK racist! you can be unintentionally culturally imperialist and look woke! a lot of the people who do this are queer and liberal or even leftist. the problem is forcing american queer history on the rest of us. shoutout to the Black and latine people in the notes who’ve rightfully pointed out that that’s a bullshit rebuttal. I’ve also noted the autocorrect typo on Marsha’s name, and fixed it, thanks for the heads up.
sort of the point of cultural imperialism is that the people doing it don’t notice it on an individual level. of course you don’t feel like you’re responsible! of course you struggle to see it when the rest of us point it out! that’s by design! if the rest of the world is saying something is a real experience that they’ve had, and you say “well i don’t see it / i’m not responsible for it,” that is blatant denial of a very real issue.
finally, for the love of god, stop using they/them for me, a trans woman who exclusively uses she/her. my pronouns are front and centre on my blog! funny how the people calling me racist and transmisogynistic for Using Examples are also frequently degendering me in the process, huh?
anyway, this vent was never intended to go viral, i posted it on a quiet afternoon after a conversation with a friend about our queer history here. i’m glad it has, though, because glossing over the americans swinging and missing, the breadth of history and knowledge being shared in the notes is a wonderful thing.
i can only agree with this, and a lot of these things are reasons why im souring more and more towards americans. its just tiring to have your own culture slowly erased and taken over by their companies, forced to learn their language because they never will themselves, expected to know all of their customs and have your life being too confrolled by their batshit politics only to get told you need to thank their people who fought against their own opression for your rights even though they had marginal effects. the average american wont ever know of hirschfelds institute of sexual science, of the queer haven that the weimar republic was, and all of the other struggles of people in my country. and even when i want to learn about others, like aoteraoa's queer history or of that of other european countries all of it is painted in a coat of "thanks to america". this goes for a lot of non-queer topics too. every time i hear americans talk about racism the only thing they talk about is white people = powerful, black people = opressed. racism extends so much further than american structural issues yet these people never realize their worldview might be flawed since they already try to paint the world in theirs. idk im just tired
this sucks. one of the worst things i had probably learnt in a while was the origin of international workers day, may 1st. Americans do not celebrate this day. why? it is the celebration of American worker anarchists striking in Chicago, which was then forcefully shot down. the rest of the world solidarily stood with the workers, still celebrating their bravery today. most Americans i speak to on may 1st dont even know that it is a holiday in most of the world. the one time americans worked internationally and a bond was formed in the working class and they just forget it.
In Germany we have pride parades through the whole summer, not just in June. Near to where I live is the memorial place / historical site of a concentration camp. Every year, there is a memorial service for the queer people incarcerated and murdered there by the Nazis. There are also local celebrations and protests for lots of different days in queer history. For example IDAHOBIT on 27th of May.
You can organise community events whenever you want and it's convenient for your community! They don't have to be in June!
