Posted by Sayed Rabbani
It is here people! Brace yourself! The first ever Straight Pride Parade to celebrate cargo shorts, beers, Tom Brady and heterosexual men and women who adore white supremacy.
Celebrate straightness? Ugh!
Earlier this month Super Happy Fun America (Yes that’s the name) announced an upcoming event called ‘Boston’s Straight Pride Parade’ and this announcement irked a lot of people and with good reason. (Chris Evans we love you!)
However, despite the backlash, the group has refused to back down and with the month coming to an end, the atrocious action has spurred people to take action against it. A standing ovation for the people who organised a straight parade in Singapore’s Sports hub as a satirical joke. The shade is real.
Straight people already have a pride parade, it is called walking home safely without the fear of gay bashing and its observed throughout the year all over the world.
There is a very simple reason why June is so special for the members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Not because it is warm and vibrant and everyone gets to wear colourful tank tops and Call Me by Your Name short-shorts but because it is the month to celebrate Pride and before all the heteronormative keyboard warriors get all agitated about “Why only gay people have pride parades? Why can’t straight people have parades?” Okay number one, you can’t have a straight pride parade because parades are inherently homosexual, alright! Look at Mardi Gras for reference. More importantly, however, number two, the reason people celebrate pride is because the first parade was, in fact, a riot.
Also read: Dear Straight People, Stop Teaching Me How To Be Queer
June is not just to wear colourful costumes and dance on glittery floats and be exploited by corporate industries but June is to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of 1969 which kicked off the LGBT liberation movement across the globe. For those who don’t know what happened on the eve of 28 June 1969, let’s take a very quick history lesson—during the 60s it was illegal to be gay in America or anywhere else for that matter (shocker!) and therefore gay men and women had to take alternative measures to just live.
They were all afraid and isolated. Enter anonymous bars and pubs which gave a free space to people to be who they were. The Stonewall Inn was one such bar in New York run by a mafia organisation. It was a bar for the lowest members of the society such as transgender teenagers, sex workers, and queer men and women. It was a shady place (involving blackmail, sex trafficking, murder, and kidnapping), but we won’t open that can of worms.
Whatever may have been the conditions people didn’t care. They were free after all. That, of course, came with a price. NYPD often raided the bar and harassed patrons mercilessly. It was so routine that people didn’t know any other way of life.
The abuse went on until it didn’t. There was only so much people could take and on the eve of June 28 1969 when policemen raided the place they were not greeted by compliant, passive people but rather, for the first time, they were greeted with resistance and the headliners of this resistance came from a very surprising source. The riot that leads to modern gay rights movement was started by queens of colour, more specifically Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. Think civil rights movement with MLK but for gay people. Now, there is a dispute about who threw the first brick at the police but the main point here is that someone took the initiative and fought against the injustices. Within minutes the situation escalated and a protest ensued. The inn was broken into, cars were burned, streets were filled with people demanding freedom from oppression and screaming “GAY POWER!” and that, my friends, is the story of how today men get to marry men and women get to marry women. A beautiful story, isn’t it?
Pride is not just a word, it’s a feeling that empowers members of the LGBTQIA+ community all over the world and gives them hope that we won’t be subjugated anymore
So, dear straight snowflakes sitting in front of their devices, let this be clear to you. The reason we celebrate Pride is because there are still countries (Hello Brunei and Chechnya!) where gay people can be stoned to death or be legally caged in concentration camps. The reason we celebrate Pride is because there are still children in the world who are alone and afraid to come out. The reason we celebrate Pride is because throughout history, people of alternate sexualities have been repressed and violently erased just for loving someone. For examples take stories about medieval men being burned at stakes and emasculated or Nazi camps and pink triangles or Orlando Pulse club shooting or instead ask the nearest gay man or woman if they are afraid to walk home alone at night and there’s your answer.
In contrast to that, let’s assess the situation of heterosexuals. At any given point in the human history was heterosexuality illegal? Nope. Was any straight man or woman ever attacked or tortured for being a ‘hetero bitch’? No. Were heterosexuals ever massacred for being, well, heterosexuals? N and an O – No. Straight people already have a pride parade, it is called walking home safely without the fear of gay bashing and its observed throughout the year all over the world (if you didn’t get the memo). So, no you cannot have a separate day to celebrate your straightness.
If you desperately want a straight parade then this is what you need to do – make heterosexuality illegal, make stoning or burning heterosexuals a thing. Police violence and hetero-bullying is a must. Finally, force all heterosexuals into a life without love and security. There’s your recipe for a future Straight Pride Parade. Ridiculous much?
Also read: What It Is Like To Navigate Mental Health As A Queer Person In A…
Pride is not just a word, it’s a feeling that empowers members of the LGBTQIA+ community all over the world and gives them hope that we won’t be subjugated anymore. A Pride Parade is just a reminder that we, members of the community, are a family and we need to stand up for each other even if it means in Pink Tutus or Army boots.
Be thankful that straights don’t have to do that.
Sayed Rabbani is a 21-year-old with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature, Psychology and Journalism. She loves books.
Featured Image Source: Mashable
The parade in question antagonises no one and is dedicated to the celebration of heterosexuality without demeaning homosexuality in any way. You may, as I do, feel that such an event is completely unnecessary and pointless but simply engaging in what-aboutery only serves to create a conflict where none need exist. The grand-marshall of the parade is Milo Yiannopolous, an openly gay Catholic of Greek and Jewish heritage and a survivor of child abuse. This parade has the potential to unite people of various sexualities and foster mutual understanding, though i think it is unlikely given the vicious backlash to the parade by people who call themselves ‘progressive’.