Pride Month, Why I don't Celebrate

It is not a click-bait title. I had ideas of making it a bit more brutal, yet in doing so I figured there would be people who don't read the whole thing and just get upset and make unhelpful comments.

Once I would have celebrated Pride Month. Once. Now it just hurts. 

For many I suppose it is worth celebrating as a way of recognizing the milestones of progress. And for many that maybe true. We don't get arrested and convicted for being cross-dressed in your car at the beach, and laws may recognize us, we are safe from police raids. Those of us old enough remember the "good old days." Queer men and trans people bore the brunt of it in the past. For some reason society has tolerated lesbian women much more, it was less visible.

I went through some of those days, run-ins with the law and society. It really was not fun. It is nothing to celebrate, I want to move on.

Pride month to me is also nothing to celebrate. The reasons for me are complex, and rooted in my past experiences, even the recent past. For all the progress made for rights and acceptance, I still don't see the need for celebration.

Even in my own country, New Zealand, where things compared to other places in the world are better, it is by no means ideal, or anywhere near really good. I see people I know celebrating and it just seems to push me further away. As many will know my own experience of the rainbow community doesn't reflect well.

Around the world it is not so good, and in places things are going backwards. Being a rainbow person can see you jailed or even executed. It is not something to celebrate.

Other minority groups don't have celebrations like this, if they celebrate at all. Many have awareness days, or a week.

So what makes the self indulgent Rainbow movement so entitled to a month? Really, I want to know.

In our fight for equality we seem to have forgotten some things. That when we get equality it doesn't make us more special than other people, that is the point of equality. That when one group gets what they want they tend to forget the more disadvantaged groups, our tiered rainbow power system really comes into play here. That our needs are no greater or more important than the next person. That rubbing our opponents noses in it only perpetuates the problems we have. That we fail to see our opponents as people to. That as a minority community there is in my experience not the support within the rainbow community.

I am an admin for a local rainbow "women's" group, and my main job is approving FB posts. Some see us as a social group only. I don't. I see the greater need to create communication about rainbow matters and support rainbow people in the group. Even if that is advertisements for members small businesses who are part of the community, and provide considered support and services for us.

We still have a way to go integrating with our wider community, something I would like to see. 

And when we do we won't need to celebrate, we will be equal partners in making our little part of the world a better place for everybody. And maybe we celebrate when our worldwide rainbow community achieves equality, and maybe that day is remembered one day a year, not a self indulgent month.