KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
First off, I was gonna respond to your other post, but wifi shenanigans and a reboot caused the post to be eaten. Dizchu though made my point better, but not perfectly. LGBT pride events are earned by the discrimination, they're an expression of the necessity of visibility and dispelling ignorance. Your response to what I said to THM, well it was putting words in my mouth, or at least making leaps of logic based on what I said in response to another person's post... I was challenging THM on the point that they jumped into political affiliation, as if being gay is a political stance, or that basic civil rights are negotiable because people on one side of the political spectrum think another group's existence is immoral.
Anyways most people who hate GSM[footnote]Gender and Sexuality Minorities[/footnote] folk aren't idiots, most of them are ignorant, in the absence of any real experience, or education, they default to fear. Then the real scum bags exploit that fear, because those people decided to hate a group for arbitrary reasons. Those people aren't idiots either, they're very savvy manipulators, who use people's lack of understanding to breed hate.
Still pride isn't so much about celebrating being Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual, Asexual, Intersex, or whatever else... It's about being visible, about standing up proudly against a culture that tells us to be ashamed of ourselves, it's about making a stand against ignorance and hatred. That's what pride events are about, they're about being proud to be ourselves despite the hatred, shaming, and prejudice. That's also what makes the concept of "straight pride" and "cis pride" absurd and insulting, because cisgender straight folk are accepted by society and permeate every level of culture. Cisgender heterosexual people simply don't need a visibility event, because they're already visible and accepted.
First (this one can be ignored): Good thing I love hearing my own voice, albeit the internal one, because this thread requires a whole lot of responses.
Second (this is where i address your points): Something being earned by discrimination is bullshit, unless you yourself have suffered it is a ridiculous notion that you have some special place in society. I do, however, acknowledge that quite a lot of people from the GSM (so that's the hip new slang, I really should keep up with my acronyms. Easier than Writing LGBT-alphabetsoup though), have suffered actual discrimination, what I've experienced is mainly internet bullshit. Oh, and what is the expiration date on discrimination by the way? To what generation should we pay for the sins of the father, or the mother if we're doing the equality thing?
I think hate is a funny word, and I'm pretty sure that it isn't what we're dealing with. To me it have always seemed like the entire issue was more one of fear, like a form of xenophobia. And like every form of xenophobia this one is abused by those who want power.
The entire pride thing still seems strange to me, why do we need to parade our differences? I wouldn't be able to tell if you were GSM or straight at a glance (unless I spot you in the middle of a pride parade wearing a rainbow unitard), so why is it important to scream it from the rooftops? The most common reason is that it encourages others to acknowledge that they're part of the GMS community, but if that was the case then why isn't it as important to acknowledge that some people might need to affirm that they're straight? Because the GSM is, as the acronym denotes, a minority? Seems like a straight idea, doesn't it? Sure, the world needs to loosen up and allow more content depicting GSM characters/people, but that would be another issue.
As I probably mentioned somewhere else, I, as a white, straight, male, don't get a lot of opportunities to celebrate myself, and to be honest I'm feeling pretty shat on this week. A nod of encouragement, however it might come, would be very appreciated. So yeah, I'd take most chances I got to get out on the street and have people give a cheer, or just sit in my chair and imagine that someone on the internet is giving a thumbs-up.
In all honesty, straight pride is a completely demented idea, but I think the same holds true for any event that encourages people to make on their gender or sexuality the core of their identity, so I figure that if we're going to keep doing one pride we might as well do the other.
