PRIDE IS UNDER THREAT. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR YOU THIS YEAR?
Why I Can’t Bring Myself to Celebrate Pride This Year
On Pride, (un)happiness, and the limits of Queer acceptance
Happiness for some involves persecution for others: it is not simply that this happiness produces a social wrong; it might even depend upon it
— Sara Ahmed (2010) The Promise of Happiness (pg. 96)
The adoption of Pride as the rallying ideal of the gay rights movement was intended as a counter to the shame and stigma which has been, and in many ways still is, directed at the Queer community because of our non-normative identities.
And every year we celebrate the way that Pride was embodied by the Stonewall Riots and other Queer activist events of that era which stood up not just against homophobia but against oppression in general: Stonewall and Pride were movements of the marginalised, of the oppressed against the oppressors.
Is that still the case?
In a very real sense, yes, because many if not all of us are still marginalised to some extent.
But Pride has also become a celebration of the achievements of the gay rights movement, and a form of acceptance which has relied on…
