Alt-Right’s Heterosexual Pride Day Forgets that Every Day is Heterosexual Pride Day
As the hashtag #HeterosexualPrideDay springs to the top of Twitter’s “Trending Now” sidebar at the tail-end of Pride Month, for whatever reason, it seems worth pointing out the obvious: Every day is heterosexual pride day.
“Every day, straight people march down the street, holding hands, kissing, and loving one another without fear of violence or arrest,” Daniel Reynolds writes in The Advocate. “Gay people know that on their lips, a kiss is not just a kiss. It is an act of bravery. It might as well be a revolution.”
“Heterosexual Pride Day,” an invention of the same people insulted by lack of a “White History Month,” ignores what is the whole purpose of Pride Month, in the first place — celebrating the resilience of a community that’s overcome unthinkable persecution, violence, intolerance, and erasure for centuries.
A plurality of America’s politicians, including our very own vice president who has supported transferring funding for HIV relief to support gay conversion therapy, continue to oppose marriage equality and even support “religious freedom” laws that would make all kinds of discrimination toward the LGBTQ community legal. Also in America, hate crimes continue to target the LGBTQ community, while the Human Rights Campaign reports on appalling rates of homicides of transgender women.
Around the world, members of the LGBTQ community continue to be brutalized by their own governments, and no matter what country you visit, heterosexuality is regarded as the norm.
The argument in favor of Heterosexual Pride Day is something along the lines of recognizing the suffering of straight people throughout history, and today, of promoting equality between queer folks and straight folks by granting both groups times of celebration. Both perspectives are woefully shortsighted.
Everyone knows straight people suffered and continue to, whether they’re black or white, rich or poor, for any number of reasons — but none of these reasons include being straight. All of our institutions within a society founded on puritanism are stacked to protect heterosexuality, the pristine, golden norm, and either erase or outright persecute queer people. That’s just a matter of objective fact, and no matter how far we come, that place of intolerance and persecution will always be our origin.
As for granting straight and queer people equal times of celebration, while folks in the LGBTQ community continue to fear legislation allowing them to be discriminated against, continue to fear intolerance from family and friends and coworkers, and continue to fear violence and hate crimes, straight people who will never have to deal with this burden should just quietly count every day as Heterosexual Pride Day.
On top of celebrating love and identity in all their forms, Pride Month is also about honoring and standing in solidarity for all those who have been hurt, who have even lost their lives, for who they love or for who they are. So for all those opting to celebrate Heterosexual Pride Day, please do take a moment of silence to send thoughts and prayers to all those living in areas on the map below that are highlighted in red, where straight people were murdered for being straight.
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