Hot take: The much quieter level of corporate Pride this year is not worth celebrating.
Not because I want to spend my dollars on Pride merch sold by corporations that don’t care, but because the near-absence of corpo Pride is a canary in the coal mine. Corpo Pride is a barometer of sorts for social acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. If Corpo Pride goes away, it should be because being LGBTQ+ is so normalized and seen as “no big deal” that there’s no message to ‘sell’ anymore; but what’s happening now is NOT that.
What IS happening then? Because I'm confused
What is happening is not that corporations are winding down the Pride displays and merch due to Pride being no big deal anymore because we live in a society where LGBTQ+ people are just seen as the same as everybody else.
What is happening is corporations are staying away from Pride because public shows of acceptance of LGBTQ+ people now comes at a much higher cost. For corporations, that cost is monetary. For people, that cost is physical violence - and I'm not saying it's new that people have been violent towards the LGBTQ+ community. I'm saying the violence is now much more widespread, and isn't just aimed at the community anymore, but at anybody who either supports the community or LOOKS LIKE they might belong to the community. Corporations deciding not to display rainbow logos and merch is just a sign of how bad things have actually gotten in the last few years.
TL;DR : Corporations "supported" us when it was easy. That many no longer visibly do so means it's no longer easy to do it. That's not a good thing.
