Fuck Pride Month

Make it stand out

Yay! Get happy queers, because it’s “PRIDE MONTH”!! Now, I can hear some of you thinking: “What exactly IS “Pride Month?” Well, in case you have missed the updates from the Grand High Council Of Global Queer Cultures, June is now officially the month we have been allocated to celebrate our sexual and gender identities. You can read all about it on The Guardian, The Independent and even The Sun, and The BBC confidently tells us that “June is Pride Month”. 

Only the thing is: IT”S NOT. June is NOT the UK’s “Pride Month”. The most cursory of Google searches (using the term “Pride Month UK”) brings up these dates: “Tuesday 1st February 2022 - Monday 28th February 2022”. That’s because the closest relation we have to a “Pride Month” in this country (and which sometimes gets confusingly labelled as “Pride Month”) is LGBT History Month which happens every February. Popular and influential media outlets that are keen to tell us that “June Is Global Pride Month” are contradicted by that bastion of deep-dive research and radical thought, Wikipedia, which states that “Pride month is not recognized internationally as Pride celebrations take place in many other places at different times”. 

Even within the UK, not all Pride celebrations take place in June. Here in Manchester and Salford, Pride is celebrated in the month of August (Salford Pride on August 7th and Manchester Pride August 27th-30th). Brighton and Glasgow also host their Pride celebrations in August while Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, saw their Pride Weekend happen at the end of May (with a delayed Pride march happening in September when social distancing is hoped to have ended). And it’s really not a global thing either: for a start, the global queer Mecca that is Berlin hosts it’s annual Pride celebration in July.  

So why are institutions of power giving us the hard sell on the idea of June being “Pride Month”? Why are they so keen to they tell us that an American celebration is now a global celebration? No disrespect to my American friends (by all means enjoy and celebrate your Pride Month in the ways you see fit) but the fact remains that this is NOT America. And in case it needs stating: “America” IS NOT “The Globe”. In fact, there is a word for the thought process that would classify “America” and “The Globe” as being the the same thing: that word is “imperialism”. 

Questioning the idea of June being “Pride Month” in the UK, or even of a “Global Pride Month” existing, ties in to the ongoing debates surrounding the increasing commercialization of Pride, and the concerted attempts to turn Pride from a community/activism-based localised event into a commercial endeavou to generate more money for the already rich and powerful. In fact, it cuts right to the core of what is at stake here: a consensus has been formed and the people it involves and effects have had absolutely no say. A celebration of our struggles and our communities that should be OURS is being dictated to us by institutions that frankly do not have our best interests at heart. And I mean that as human beings, regardless of orientation. In all honesty, the sudden appearance and acceptance of “Pride Month” by the media in this country makes me suspect that “Pride” itself is being weaponized to tighten capitalism’s economic and cultural stranglehold across the world. 

I know I run the risk of sounding like an old  curmudgeon in writing this, but in truth I don’t care. Pride never had much relevance to my own coming out or self-acceptance stories - in fact, quite the opposite: mainstream Pride celebrations can be very exclusionary to those of us with othered bodies. Hats off to the Pride organizations around the country that are doing their best to be more inclusive, but foisting a non-existent “Pride Month” onto communities that don’t celebrate Pride in June only works to contradict that inclusivity by ignoring regional variations. And what is another system of power that seeks to eradicate regional cultures by enforcing hegemonic ideals? Hold on - it’s that damn Imperialism again! 

Don’t get me wrong - we SHOULD be proud of ourselves! We have EARNED that pride. But in the rush to celebrate our hard won freedoms (and to generate the energy to fight for more) we must stop being distracted by the trinkets and baubles and all those unironed, £1 rainbow flags suddenly sellotaped to supermarket windows. We need to stop letting massive, powerful companies and corporations dictate to us what Pride is, who we are and what we can be. In the words of Emma Dabiri, author of the frankly excellent What White People Can Do Next: we must “Interrogate Capitalism”: 

“Without knowing more about the origins of the systems we have inherited, it is difficult for us to identify the fact that many of our best efforts to overcome them merely reinforce them. The structure itself never changes, just the content”.

I’m not proud of capitalism. I’m not proud of the government. I’m not proud of the media or Tesco or Sainsbury’s or being sponsored by a fucking bank. I’m not proud of American Imperialism - or ANY form of Imperialism including British and European colonialism. 
What am I proud of? I’m proud of US. I’m proud of YOU! I’m proud of all the queers that have been, and continue to be, alienated by “Pride” yet who continue to exist and shine. You’ve made it this far and you did it on your own terms!   

So Fuck THEIR “Pride Month”. Fuck having no say in when and where you should be proud of yourself.  
PRIDE FOR LIFE or GTFO. 

Words: The Niallist | Illustration: Gaby Whitehill___STEADY_PAYWA