To all the LGBTQIA+ cuddlers out there
Happy Pride Month to all!!!🏳️🌈
Yay!! Got this in the mail last week, and I love it!
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!! 😃
❤🧡💛💚💙💜 happy pride month!!!!!
@valkyrievixen That is awesome!
💖💖💖💖 happy pride!!! 💖💖💖💖
🏳️🌈Happy Pride Month, Y'all! 🏳️🌈 cuuuuuute watchband! gimme gimme!
Happy Pride Month My Lovelies!
Happy Pride, everyone!!!
@valkyrievixen I love your watch, thanks for sharing it!
Happy Corporation Marketing month, where my sexuality is promoted to make a quick buck T-T
@ArtGurlX3 We'll have to agree to disagree on the way we look at it. As someone raised in places where gay people "didn't exist" (aka. where people considered it a sickness and flooded the local newspapers and TV stations with hate when gay marriage became legal in Canada), I'm grateful to live in a place where I can just freakin exist and be myself, and worry so much less about threats, gay bashing, etc. A whole month of pride events is a dream come true every year for me.
Corporations will be corporations, whatever the occasion. I prefer to support my local queer vendors for pride-related stuff anyway.
(Also, FWIW: Pride was brought about by LGBT+, for LGBT+. Corporations just piggybacked when it was socially acceptable to do so. They certainly shouldn't be given credit for starting this.)
@squeakytoy You have some good points. I just feel like it can be too over the top sometimes and they overdue it (like not every freaking thing has to be rainbow)
@squeakytoy also sorry if my comments came off as a little harsh. Totally respect your view point given the environment you grew up in
@ArtGurlX3 It's alright, don't worry! And in all honesty, I agree with you that it can sometimes go a bit overboard on the wrong things - I don't like it when pride events get turned into superficial rainbow-themed parties that only seem to serve as entertainment for straight folks, and stray away from the political roots.
I've been out for over 30 years now. I have learned that Pride month, in my opinion, is more about straight people saying that they are okay with us now. The healing goes both ways. We have a lot of healing to do as gay people, but so does the larger straight community. No one is responsible for the trauma they have suffered, and seeing so many of my friends die from AIDs and being gay-shamed out of a job, was traumatic. However, my own healing is my responsibility. Unfortunately, many in the gay community are in that trauma cycle of blaming straight people for their issues. I love my dear straight friends and appreciate how they have been so dear to me. In the end, it really doesn't matter which gender you love but that you can love.
@ArtGurlX3 I see where you are coming from. It sometimes feels a bit like the wear pink promos during breast cancer awareness mo . You even see pink cans of soup and boxes of cereal. I will say though that exposure is exposure regardless of the platform, and the more awareness people have of LGBTQ the better .
@pmvines - several years ago I was in the grocery store during October and it was over the top with the pink ribbons breast cancer awareness. Pink balloons, pink ribbons on the toilet paper and English muffin packages. Seriously? It was making me nauseous. I turned the corner and there was a very pink display of Barbie dolls and I thought, good grief, is it Breast Cancer Barbie? No, it was just your usual pink is for girls Barbie.
I like the rainbow flags and such though if they start appearing on packages of toilet paper and English muffins I’ll have to draw the line. I have a rainbow flag from Italy that says “Pace” on it (“peace” in Italian) and I’d put it up but I’m afraid that people would wonder why it says pace.
I’m so socially out of it these days I kind of forget, thanks for the reminder. I should find out what’s going on locally. It’s not just the COVID isolation, I moved recently and it’s been an exhausting process. And my FB account got shut down (I have no idea why) and that was my primary way of keeping up with local happenings. As a result, I’m very out of the loop.
Here’s a piece of local gay history trivia that I’d forgotten about until a few years ago: the very first gay/lesbian hotline in St. Louis was the phone number of the apartment where I lived. We didn’t get all that many calls but I fielded the very few from women (my roommates were gay men), mostly directing them to a secret lesbian social club that met once a week in an unoccupied apartment. It was just a few years after the Christopher Street riot, my roommates were part of the hub of the nascent gay pride scene in St. Louis. I marched in the very first local Pride parade which was very, very small and hardly anyone even knew it occurred, though we did get a photo in the newspaper. I was 19 years old. Decades later, in 2000, I would get to attend the Pride Parade in San Francisco and get to see the Dykes on Bikes, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and dance with some of the Radical Fairies.
Here’s a piece of lesbian history that was obscure even in 1972, the Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian organization whose mission was both political and social. They faced the challenge of trying to get the word out about the organization while having to be secretive about its existence or belonging to it because in those days it definitely was not safe to be openly gay or lesbian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Bilitis
For me this month is a time of joyful celebration of being able to be fully ourselves and one of reflection - my own journey, the many LGBTQ. people who have been in my life, how times have changed, the many friends I lost to AIDS . . . I think about the odd niche bisexuals inhabit and how that has changed over time. I think about the role the gay community has played in my life from early on and how I’ve participated and how I’ve not.
Thanks for the reminder, I needed that.
Happy Pride month to all for whom that has meaning.
P.S. @valkyrievixen , your watch is lovely.
;-)
Happy Pride Month to all!!
@valkyrievixen , I love that watch!!
Happy Pride Month to my fellow LGBTQ+ friends! 🌈🤗🏳️🌈
@Babichev those are some great anecdotes thanks for sharing!
@babichev What amazing stories! Thank you so much for being an active part of LGBTQ+ history and in shaping the path forward. For me, the reflective part of Pride month involves deep, joyous study of the strength of the community, and meeting new people with stories to tell. Thank you again for sharing and for all you do.
Thanks to everyone for the kind words.
There are so many untold stories, big ones and small ones, sad ones and happy ones and painful ones and mundane ones. They all make up a part of the history.
💖💛💜❤️💗🧡💚💙❤️💖💕🧡💛💜💗
A great day to be GAY 🌈🌈🌈🌈 😍😍😍
Happy pride everyone ❤🧡💛💚💙💜