Problem #1: You patronized
@Celever and I don't like that kind of thing.
Problem#2:
@Jungletoad didn't use the word "how" once in his post, he only asked "why". So yeah, I think I
did answer the question. So, keeping the 5Ws and 1H in mind, you have some good concerns I want to discuss:
You said it yourself, Gay Pride isn't just about acceptance from everyone who isn't gay, it's also about self-acceptance. All of the time spent chanting "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" allows for people to come to terms with their own orientation. The point is that it's different from the norm, like how roughly 10% of the world population being gay makes that 10% different from the norm.
I'm not going to argue that Pride parades should be a part of gay culture for infinity, but at least for now we still live in a society that requires education about sexuality and the role it can play as a portion of ones identity. In part, Pride is utilized as a chance to talk about safe sex, relationships, networking, and just being normal on ones own terms. It is increasingly becoming a platform for STD testing and information on what you can do to protect yourself and your partner(s), among other comprehensive topics.
I'm afraid I've never seen statistics or testimonials of people that feel like they can't join a Pride parade, so I can't really make heads or tails of that comment. From my own experience, it's just about as exciting as Mardi Gras to people in the US that aren't even slightly hispanic, or Halloween, which isn't really practiced for it's original religious intent, yet people are used to dressing up and partying. Gay Pride, like Independence Day or Thanksgiving, is a means of coming together and remembering the accomplishments of those people who gave us the ability to be here so we can move forward. If you feel excluded from that, I mean...You can call the organizers, write a letter to your congressman, talk to the PTA...
When you say "differences that shouldn't exist in the first place", what do you mean by that?
Let's let celever speak for himself, shall we? if he felt I patronized him, I can only apologize, and say it wasn't my intention; as I said, I was thinking about that this morning, and it was still fresh on my mind; I probably said more than I needed to explain anyway.
Jungletoad didn't use the word, but look at his "why"'s in context, they were about the parade
as a tool to convince people to support their cause, which was also my point.
But, anyway, I wasn't talking about his question (I said I wouldn't speak for him, after all), but about
my question, the one I posed in the previous paragraphs; a historicist approach answers "
why are gay parades this way" (it started with the gay community and drag queens, on a heavily repressive environment), but after so many years, it's not about
visibility anymore, which was its purpose back then, so, "how do those parts, born out of a historical context with a specific objective, help the cause on this new context?" becomes the question.
So,
how does chanting and strutting in leather with dildos help with self-acceptance? that is a purely internal process, and only
you can do it; regardless, it still perpetuates a division; "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it" is directed to the people who hate them; it's a reminder of their difference and its permanence (and not a very polite one at that, but okay, I'll give them a pass on that; as I said, it's outdated, and its roots lay in riots, that's hardly a good soil to grow politeness).
But, how many people who hate gay people
need that reminder? isn't the parade itself a reminder? or their very existence, and the fact that they're becoming increasingly more present on society? they hate that more than chanting, and that happens
Every. Single. Day. unlike the chant.
So, the chanting is useless from an awareness perspective (and so is the 10% statistic); all that matters is that gay people
exist, whatever their numbers, and that they are people, just like straight people are people, but they just have a tiny
tiny difference on their preferences.
As an example, I don't go around chanting "I'm here, I don't like hot dogs, get used to it!", because I know it's moot; no one cares, even though 10% of people don't like hot dogs
(a completely made up statistic, but you probably get my point); all that should matter is that the people in the parade are the exact same as the people outside of it, and their difference is as important and deserving of discrimination (on either way) as liking or disliking hot dogs (which it
is, since both are stupid things to establish divisions about).
My point (again, I'm not speaking for jungletoad) is that it is very good that the parade does more than colorful people prancing about; however, it's still just the colorful people who prance about, and they are still the face of the event, as is the chant; those are divisions, and they are perpetuating them with such a forceful (and outdated) approach; my suggestion of a field day wasn't out of the blue; I had this very conversation with a friend of mine a long time ago and I thought it back then; doing that allows everything you said, but with the added (and much needed) benefit of bringing down the barriers between gay and straight people (which are the ones I was talking about), literally sitting them on the same table to share and learn about each other on a completely normal environment (after all, I'm positive the people in the parade don't wear their...
ensembles, to work and PTA meetings; they're just like everyone else without them); they are who, in their position as "mainstream straight society", need to realize that the differences of race, gender and sexuality are less defined and relevant than they seem right now, that we're all human, whatever our genetics, and accept the outsiders in; once the outsiders are truly in, then there won't be any barriers; labels as gay or straight would become meaningless, because, they
are.
The thing is, haters don't deserve hate,
they deserve pity, and in most cases they won't change (so, why bother to scream at them?); society, however, does change, and leaves them behind (which is what they
really hate), which is why at this point, policies aimed at a forceful introduction of a "brand new" class of people (as they were back in the 50's) on society's eye are counter-producing, since society is now aware of its existence;
they fulfilled their purpose; now it is time to stop excusing the behaviors of the past (just as now gay-shaming has become nearly inexcusable) and move on to the future, change the approach to incorporate those who are outside not because of hate, but out of ignorance or misinformation, because those can be fixed, and they will be fixed, eventually.
I hope it's clear what I mean here; the concept of the parade isn't so bothersome as the ideology of difference behind it, an ideology I've found, in my studies, that outsider groups are often as keen to keep as the insiders are, until time "erases" those differences.
But the truth is that those differences are simply not there, but all people have to realize that first. It's not a much different process as coming out, really; both are about realizing a personal truth and changing one's worldview.
So, in a way, you could say society needs to "come out", and gay parades are part of society.
) without snarkiness or a mean tone to my post, and that's really not a good thing. Maybe you're right, Lostlorn, but calling him out on it won't accomplish anything.
