Demon Month or why I don’t care for uncomfortable months.
It’s pride month and while tongue in cheek we all like the “demon month” and the “wishing all homophobes a very uncomfortable pride month” images, is that the message Pride is meant to be sending?
What are we saying when we wish homophobes and transphobes a very uncomfortable month?
Are we saying “suck it homophobes, this is our time”
When we look at this image:
What are we saying about Pride Month with this image?
Are we saying “Dear Christians, if you demonize us, it’s fine, we will be your demons”.
The original “Demon Month” image was posted by Lauren Witzke. Who can only be described as a yeasty codpiece with blonde hair from Delaware and she has a hardon for Qanon. But we kind of took it and made it our funny little Queer thing, thanks Lauren.
For me the entire premise of pride is taking up the space we occupy and defining ourselves by ourselves and while we do acknowledge heteronormative prejudices, this is about us not heterosexual society. External views are not unwelcome or welcome, they are simply not a factor because we aren’t playing on your turf, we are playing on our Queer pitch.
When we say “love is love”, looking past the cutesy superficial message of the slogan. Are we not creating a space that poses an alternative to the Us and Them paradigm that cis heteronormative society seeks to impose on us.
Pride is about liberating the individual from the ideological bounds of decency, expectation and shame.
I use the words decency, expectation and shame very deliberately. Cis Heteronormative society has long used the cudgels of shame, expectation and decency against us. Decency has been used as the primary stick to beat us with for decades. The laws created to limit queerness have always been coded as “decency laws”. Laws and ideas designed to legitimise monogamous heterosexual sexual contact by creating a category of “indecent sexual contact”. Shame spreads the “indecent” love we exercise across our families, making them accountable for our actions and affections. Expectations are the criteria cis heteronormative society uses to define acceptable relationships and family structures.
By saying “dear homophobes, wishing you an uncomfortable pride month” are we not playing heteronormative games? Are we not using shame, decency and expectation? Are we not harnessing the weapons of the enemy against the enemy while simultaneously and internally saying we are above the “us and them” paradigm? Are we not saying we are hypocrites?
When a heterosexual parent says “I accept my gay child as they are” we baulk at the idea that “gay” needs acceptance. This is because acceptance indicates difference, abnormality and deviance. Something that needs processing and understanding. A better statement for the parent would be “I love my child”. This breaks the paradigm where queerness needs acceptance, and moves it to a position where gay and straight are the same thing. Is this not the ultimate reflection of “love is love”
Instead of saying “wishing all homophobes an uncomfortable pride month” I think it’s better to say “love is love and we have space for you but not your weapons”
Except Lauren Witzke, the Police and Rosie Duffield, they can go fuck themselves.
PS. when I say “the Police” I mean law enforcement, not the band for whom Sting played bass guitar. Dude, you are exuding more Bi energy than my blue and purple lava lamp, come out already.
