With Pride Month beginning tomorrow, how proud are you of your sexuality? As a white cis-gendered male, I am frankly a little embarrassed about mine. I mean, it’s not exactly cool to fancy the opposite sex these days, and many of us hetero-normies have become increasingly wary of appearing ‘inappropriate’ when making a move on someone we like the look of. So don’t expect me to be parading my vanilla-flavoured proclivities through central London any time soon. What would I even wear to signal hetero-pride – baggy cords and a neatly tucked-in shirt?
That said, you might well spot me at some of this year’s shenanigans; after all, the organisers certainly know how to put on a show. Back in my acting days, I even headed a Pride march through Soho with a bunch of other thesps dressed as (wait for it)… Judy Garland. We had been appearing in a play about the Stonewall riots and the Pride organisers thought it might be fun to get us to take part in the festivities dressed as the gay icon. The majority of our 12-strong cast were straight so we all felt a little uncomfortable – not just ethically but physically, what with our ill-fitting stilettos and itchy fishnets.
Look, I enjoy a good street parade as much as the next man/woman/trans/non-binary person, but I am beginning to wonder why Pride Month still exists. Obviously when homosexual acts were legalised in 1967 there was much cause for celebration within the gay community; when you’ve been hounded for your personal preferences, turning ignominy to pride makes sense. The closet can be a horribly lonely place in which to reside.
The real mark of success will come when setting aside a month to celebrate gayness becomes as absurd as setting aside a month to celebrate straightness
But here’s the thing: these equal rights for men and women of all persuasions have been in place now for well over six decades. So what are the Pride celebrations actually celebrating, other than reaffirming the old carrion cry that ‘We’re here and we’re queer’ – to which the natural response these days might be: ‘Yes, we know, so what?’ Who we choose to sleep with should be as irrelevant as who we choose to watch television with. Ironically, the more we focus on difference, the more we ‘other’ diverse lifestyles, and as we all know, ‘othering’ is just another form of bigotry… or is it?
Those who aspire to the politics of identity seem increasingly confused about what ‘diversity’ actually means. Is it the celebration or removal of difference? If a man can become a woman simply by saying ‘she’ is, then the latter would seem the most likely interpretation – but in the case of Pride, focusing on dissimilarity is crucial to the cause. Unless the new moral gatekeepers are able to define their orthodoxies, uncertainty and division will continue, but maybe confusion is all part of the progressive reordering of things.
When it comes to Pride Month, I certainly don’t mean to be a party-pooper, but I do feel it’s important to consider what ‘pride’ means in this particular context. Taking pride in one’s achievements, for example, is something we can all aspire to, but is sexuality really such an achievement? For most, sexual preference is simply a given; I have never tried to achieve straightness, I had straightness thrust upon me.
Conversely, if Proverbs is to be believed, ‘pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall’. For Christians, self-devotion, self-justification and self-glorification are an aversion of God and therefore sinful. For a lifestyle once unfairly mired in a perception of sinfulness, ‘pride’ may not be the best line of defence, if indeed defence is what the upcoming celebrations are really about.
I have always suspected that Pride is less a testament to the joys of being gay and more a repudiation of staid old societal norms. Again, this would be perfectly understandable if the society in question still regarded homosexuality as a crime. But this is 2023, where discriminating against someone on the grounds of their sexuality is a serious offence. That’s not to say there won’t be bigots who flout the law – but as a nation we have surely accepted that not everyone is straight. Equality under the law is indeed a vital achievement, but the real mark of success will come when setting aside a month to celebrate gayness becomes as absurd as setting aside a month to celebrate straightness. Now where did I leave those cords?
Comments