• Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Short answer - because the original events were called “Pride” and other events that followed that model and style can literally trace the name to two organizers of the original event, Brenda Howard and Robert A. Martin.

    Long answer…

    What is important to remember about Pride is it is specific. Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual liberation marches pre-date Prides but they were more like a conventional protest and they were poorly attended because you had to expect police violence. They were dour, focused primarily on the pain and hardship of oppression. It was mostly people dressed to look respectable marching with signs to appeal to the cis/hetro masses in a “hey look we’re actually just like you!” kind of way.

    “Pride” was different. They organized the first event around the concept of Independence day style activities. It was supposed to have the feel of an emancipation celebration and was originally intended to become a National day of observance of the five days of Riots at Stonewall, something that a lot of queer people decided to rally around as essentially the literal fight for independence of queer culture in the US. Shortly thereafter a lot of cultural aspects of Queer community done for fun that actually create a culture like Ballroom culture, Drag performance, dance, theater, caberet, burlesque, various bizzare kink related specialities were spotlighted. Pride took all that stuff that was happening in the shadows and turned it into a public festival. In part it was intended as a “fuck you we are not afraid and there is more of us than you think” but it also gave the public a look at the spectacle of open queer joy. That it was fun and weird meant it became a proper festival. It spread and other events that followed that format also became “Prides”. Over time other communities and sub groups within the growing coalition came to define their own means to celebrate together and also came to call then things like “Trans Pride”.

    So at least in part the “Pride” portion is a historical naming convention for a very specific style of event and festival with a tracable history. It is helpful to understand that “Pride” has a secondary and silent implication of Pride Event "Woo Happy Pride! " is at some point like wishing someone Happy Christmas. “Proud” is in part an event theme that euphemizes that original “fuck you, our culture is valid and we won’t be shamed out of the public eye.”

    Someone going on about “cis pride” is at some point basically just trying to carbon copy a format of protest made for a specific purpose while entirely misunderstanding the original usage. Some argue they don’t really need a specific public culture festival or a protest because they are the dominant culture. They get their culture fest from national and religious tinted celebrations and they are accepted as a norm so the protest element is unnecessary. It more comes across more as someone who just doesn’t like how queer people have claimed a slice of public space and want to have yet another party to celebrate themselves. It’s like throwing an Independence day style celebration but when there is no commemorative event at it’s core and no independence that needed to be fought for at all.

    • Syrc@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I guess there’s a huge distinction between pride as an emotion and Pride as an event at this point. Maybe that’s also why it’s seen with a very different meaning, I don’t think “””cis pride””” ever had an event, and if it did it was probably just a gathering of transphobes chanting slurs.

      • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Straight prides… Have existed… and you are correct that the theme of straight prides were more about creating a narrative about how cis hegemony is unfairly under attack by the LGBTQIA making them in effect anti queer bigotry parades driven more by spite than anything. The organizers of such events have had traditionally firm links to the alt right.

        The end effect of the Boston straight pride event was like an empty parody of a Pride event that just looks like an American Independance day celebration with a bunch of people wearing jeans and t-shirts waving American flags with a bunch of signs saying stuff like “Remember who gave birth to you” and a bunch of Trump related signage making it kind of vaguely indistinguishable from any other conservative rally.

        The fact that when given a chance to organize a straight pride parade it just tends to take on the nationalist symbols of the country it is performed in kind of demonstrates that maybe there isn’t a whole lot of point to the event celebrating straight culture as the participants can’t really identify what is unique about being straight themselves because you are just supposed to assume it as a default…

        • Syrc@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Oh. I looked up “cis pride” and found nothing so I assumed that was it.

          Then yeah, that just reinforces your last comment. I still think the difference in treatment feels unfair, but I can’t really blame it when LGBT people take these occasions to show off their best side and straight ones show their worst instead. I guess it’s a conversation for a different century (when hopefully we all learned not to ridicule people different from us).

          • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I mean Prides are still open to cis and hetero folk in the same way like a Italian culture festival is open to non-Italians. The key component is that queerness has a culture with it’s own traditions, history, art, coded language and etticate in much the same way an ethnicity does the only difference is that it is not passed along by virtue of birth. The nature of Prides as being in opposition to generational suppression and genocide just makes them a bit louder and in your face.