Does anyone else feel weird about gay pride/rainbow capitalism now that the gay rights movement has been taken over by gender ideology?

submitted by zerosis from (self.LGBDropTheT)

Apologies if the title is a bit cumbersome, as well as this text wall, I'm not sure exactly how to put this feeling into words, this will probably be messy. Before I hit 'peak trans' this year, I was pretty active in the gay scene, I went to pride, bought rainbow shit, and for the past decade I've been generally happy about the way things had turned around for gays. I basically grew up right in that weird zone of time between gay people being generally shunned or misunderstood by society, and then growing to be pretty widely accepted over the span of 8-10 years.

I've just been scrolling through news feeds and shopping lists, and it hit me suddenly, that now when I see 'rainbow'-themed products, advertisements for gay events, or even just opening gay dating apps I've used for years, I feel a kind of apprehension now. It kind of disturbed me at first, because as an out and proud gay man, I've always been nothing but unabashedly proud of my sexuality and the fact that I survived being disowned for it, escaping an oppressive religion, and generally just being my own person. Of course, I always rolled my eyes at companies that were putting out gay-pride themed products and messages just for brownie points (which is most of the time, I'm sure), but I never felt that weird apprehension that I do now.

The gay community, it's ideals, everything about it has changed because of this gender ideology cult. It's almost more accurate to say we don't even have a community anymore. Absolutely everything is about the T now. Trans validation, changing science and language, silencing women, co-ercing GNC people into changing their bodies to re-inforce rigid gender roles, putting children on horomone blockers, all of that is what I see now when a picture of a rainbow-painted mug comes up on my newsfeed, or a new flavor of gay-pride Oreos shows up at the market, or one of my coworkers puts an LGBTQ+ hashtag on one of their posts. It's disturbing, I don't recognize it, and I don't know what to do about it.

But yeah, I'm not sure if any of you will relate to this, I just had to put it out there.

all 21 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" 26 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 0 fun27 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It sounds like we’re about the same age because when I first became cognizant of my gay thoughts, I didn’t even know that homosexuality was a thing. Shortly thereafter I learned about it, but the focus was always on gay men, and it was very stigmatized. I don’t know anyone who came out in high school. I know one person who came out in college and everyone else came out after that. Me particularly late. So even though I watched from the sidelines, I never really got a chance to feel pride. I came out and came face first with gender ideology and it re-closeted me in many ways. And it’s rapidly gotten worse. It definitely has nothing to do with me, I don’t want to be associated with it, and I don’t have community support at all. I view a lot of the gay people I know IRL as cult members. They’re lovely people as individuals but they turned their brains off.

[–]SkinnyVanilla 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I came out in high school, and then I was The Lesbian, all by my lonesome

[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Brave but lonely. Did you come out affirmatively or were you outed? And did you keep it among friends only or did everyone know? I’m just curious how one comes out when you’re the only one. I was terrified of being “The Lesbian.” I still feel that way to a certain extent because my closest friends are straight women.

But I don’t think there’s a timeline where I could have come out in high school even though I was generally aware that I found women very attractive and struggled to find men attractive. I was barely even aware of the concept of a lesbian specifically, fit none of the stereotypes, and was dealing with more important shit on my hierarchy of needs. So I was stuck awkwardly vocalizing out loud things like: how come no guys are attractive? Why are half the mediocre, unattractive men in our school dating substantially more attractive girls? Guys are lucky because they get to date girls and we have to date them. I have no interest in dating; I’m more focused on my (female) friends now. And basically molesting said friends all the time though no one seemed to mind. And after puberty I also had no interest in even being friends with boys. My closest male friends ended up being gay too and apparently I was the only one who wasn’t surprised. My friends seriously have the worst gaydar. I felt comfortable with them in ways I didn’t with other guys. I didn’t give it too much thought but I intuitively knew they were gay so I opened up to one of them about being attracted to girls/women while in high school and they opened up a bit to me. But we weren’t applying labels to ourselves at that time. It was more like “this doesn’t mean we’re gay gay.”

[–]SkinnyVanilla 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I came out to family first (my stepdad was the first person I told), and that went very well, so I wasn't particularly scared to come out. I told my friends, and there were 3 gay guys in my small friend group (who, collectively, were The Gays), so it also wasn't a big deal to them either. After that, people knew, I would be frank about it if it came up, but I went to an alternative high school in a kind of rural hippie town with lots of people who were weird in one way or another, and no one cared. I was never bullied for it or anything. I was fortunate to just be well-situated to not be afraid or ashamed, even though it was twenty years ago.

[–]Shadow_Lurker 26 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 0 fun27 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The discomfort comes from the fact that you can clearly notice that most of this 'acceptance' isn't genuine at all, but a simple ploy to take your money.

This is what the 'LGBTQ+' movement ultimately is: a corporate, money grabbing mess.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 18 insightful - 6 fun18 insightful - 5 fun19 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

I hate to admit it but since you are being stunning and brave I will to lol. I used to associate the pride flag with positivity but know I know it stands for ramming gender ideology everywhere. Even corporate pride doesn’t bother me as Much as this new pride with an agenda. It’s all new gender languages laid over sexuality until sexuality has no meaning anymore. I see that flag on a news article and part of me is like oh no what stupid thing are they asking for/ fighting for now?

[–]zerosis[S] 13 insightful - 3 fun13 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, exactly! It's like when I see a pride flag now, I'm automatically preparing myself to read some gender cult bullshit.

[–][deleted] 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is why actual gay people are distancing themselves from the community in droves. It doesn't represent us anymore. It's the "queer" community now.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But they want to keep the name to leech off of our past history of demanding legitimate rights and acceptance to earn respect by association. I believe there is a logical fallacy for this?

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 18 insightful - 4 fun18 insightful - 3 fun19 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Gender identity is basically the commoditization of gender nonconformity aimed at gay rights.

[–]insta 17 insightful - 3 fun17 insightful - 2 fun18 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Unrelated, but I fucking hate the stupid brown/black rainbow flags. Literally every movement has to be co-opted.

There isn't even such a thing as brown and black rainbows, it doesn't make sense. Just pure ideology.

[–]Shadow_Lurker 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There was already a black gay pride, something that these gender warriors didn't even know.

It's almost like they don't fucking care for the history of black gay rights or something.

[–]insta 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They don't really care, they just know they can co-opt their message. Gay racial minorities have been going on about "racial preferences in the gay community" for a while now. Gender activists can latch onto the black/asian/hispanic/minority open about "NO BLACKS" and say that's the same as "NO VAGINAS".

Nobody owes you sex or attraction. If people don't want to date/fuck trans people or blacks that's up to them. I don't understand this upsurge of thought policing. I get it can be fueled by racism and that racism does exist within the community, but I'll never get behind you whining about people not being attracted to you.

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've always hated it long before gender stuff got worse. I've always hated the fake happiness of it and the narrative that homosexuals need to be "colorful" and entertaining and flamboyant, usually for other people's entertainment.

Maybe it's because I'm from a different culture (Russian) and because I am in no way "proud" of my sexuality nor want to be, but I think it was always ridiculous, childish, and regressive.

[–]ThiccDropkickGay 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

This is why I love that they made their own trans/rainbow flag even though it looks like shit. So I can keep my rainbow

[–]EveSerpentFiregender Mon-Fri / Pyrogender Wknds & Holidays 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It represents them very well.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It'll be nice once they get that one going in full swing and people begin to notice a distinction between that and the true rainbow. I am still a bit confused as to why homosexual males are the only group that doesn't have their own flag, though? I remember questioning it on r GayBros (big mistake) and getting chewed out for no good reason about how the rainbow, which represents everyone, is our flag while simultaneously not belonging to us at all? There was 0 logic in anything they were saying, and it all would boil down to "The age of cis men is over, you don't deserve to be distinct, your role is to serve others" if their sheeple were ready for that yet.

[–]ExecuteHomophobes 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

AskGayBros is nothing but yet another sub for fetishizing toxic masculinity at this point.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Gaybros and Gay_irl certainly are, but I think AskGayBros is holding on as best it can due to a lack of moderator interference

[–]HelloMomo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I totally feel that, m'dude

I have a rainbow quilt that I sewed the month after I realized I was gay. It was actually a project I thought up the year before, for totally ungay and pragmatic reasons (I didn't have enough of any one color scheme left to make a whole blanket, but if I used all the colors I could make it work). Then after I realized I was gay, I remembered that idea and actually got around to sewing it. In hindsight it all seems rather cringey, but y'know, I was 19, it was summer, and I was bored.

Honestly, I think the quilt is still quite pretty. But I feel kinda lukewarm and iffy about it these days. Like maybe that isn't symbolism that I want displayed in my house, now. But I don't want to sell it or give it away either, cause I don't want the TQs getting their grubby hands on it.