Over the rainbow — why pride 24/7/365 matters
Each July and August rainbow flags unfurl, flying high on summer breezes, signifying to the world that “we care”. The ‘we’ are usually corporations, governments, and allies who gain a feel-good glow in supporting the cause, giving oxygen to LGBTQI+ struggles, and highlighting that the non-cis and straight folk have never had it so good. Or so the brands and messages would hope us to believe. The rainbow festoons everything, slapped across social media, on sandwich boxes, and every conceivable product to sell back to the community to turn a handy profit. While their allyship is laudable, and needed in the struggle, this capitalistic undertow often taints real efforts to break through biases and homo/transphobia within society at large. This is why moving beyond the rainbow into actual discourse and conversations is so important. It is why I believe that we need to engage 24/7/365 with LGBTQI+ issues in the mainstream, where pride in oneself is more than walking in a parade or hoisting a rainbow flag in distress.
Many LGBTQI+ lived experiences will speak on the hardship of their lives, of coming out into the eye of a personal hurricane. Where the solace was a rainbow flag, a pin worn with defiance, and engagement with a community was branded under the six colours. Personally, my journey started with Ask Jeeves! searches, in a time before trans flags and the rainbow was everywhere. It was a time of symbols, coded language, and guarded conversations. While pride in oneself was self- evident, the community was more rough and ready, a continual process through which identity was shaped, loves often found, and identity forged in sweaty dance floor caldrons that heaved with pulsating bodies. Our communities were of our days, our youth spent in search of a yellow brick road that often led to Manchester or Brighton or London.
Fast forward through the supernova that was smart phones and broadband, and LGBTQI+ identities are practically omnipresent, especially if you know where to look. Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram et al allow us to construct personal rainbow bubbles, living queer lives with like minded folks in our corner. We can find for our rights and identities at the click of a button, sending hope and spite frothing into the ether, helping lift up those in despair and railing against communal injustice with equal ease. Ours is a truly electronic revolution, built in the shadows of systems designed to engage the widest possible audience. We overshare, hide the grit, sanitize, and yet somehow we muddle through in building our online rainbow communities.
Into this fast-tracked identity those same corporations slide into our DMs, hoisting an arm around our shoulder in solidarity. They want us to buy more and rebel less. March in our parades, brand our bars with corporate logos, and make us feel like we have won, that we have it all. They make the rainbow safe, like Che Guevara plastered over our walls, dialling back the revolution for more plastic kitsch made in Chinese sweatshops. In the dark of the night they sell us ‘perfection’, making eating disorders chic just to have those abs, and whispering seductive nothings as we swipe to find a momentary high. Every aspect of our lives has been commodified, sold back to us as the queer experience. They want us to buy, buy, buy, not yell, yell, yell.
The first pride was a riot, rising up to smash injustice. It was intersectional. It was queer as fuck, cutting across all identities. Not a single corporation in sight. The greatest trick the corporations pulled was in supporting white picket fence queer experiences at the expense of marginalising queer people of colour, trans folk, and anyone else without the money to spend on the rainbow experience. Rainbows follow storms, and for many LGBTQI+ folk their storms have no passed, have not led to a pot of personal gold. They are left at the margins, destitute because they dare to be themselves. Left out of the wider movement because they cannot afford Pride tickets, or bus tickets to the nearest safe city, or access to reliable internet connections to engage with their communities. Even in the neon glow we are still second-class citizens. Some ask what more we want. Some say we have too many rights. Clearly there are some LGBTQI+ folk who have almost parity and equity with cis/straight society, yet in our corporatized world the right to simply be human and exist in dignity is still anathema to many.
The recent movement to make a more inclusive LGBTQI+ flag that draws in the wide diversity within the community reflect this perspective. That intersectional identities need to be considered, that those with economic power and resources cannot be allowed to dominate the whole conversation. Marriage, adoption, and employment rights matter, but so does zoning laws, gentrification, and the middle-class domination of queer movements. Minority voices get left in the wake of those who can amplify their message with money and connections. Their needs and desires may get a mention during Pride month or Black History month, but their marginalised voices struggle to be head year round because they do not have the resources for PR departments, graphic designers, and slick marketing. Theirs are the voices that are drowned out and forgotten as rainbows are peeled off windows, flags furled, and banners stored in lockers for another eleven months.
This is why Pride, the idea of continual struggle for full equality and recognition of intersectional LGBTQI+ folk within the movement, must be 24/7/365. Their needs and voices matter, for every society and community is judged by how it treats the marginalised within it. Disabled people struggle with lack of access to queer facilities, locked out from entertainment geared towards able bodies folk with lots of disposable income. Queer people of colour (QTPOC) are marginalised both within their own communities and within LGBTQI+ spaces because their issues are put behind those of vocal white activists, despite the fact that QTPOC are significantly more at risk of violence and murder than white queer people. Older queer voices are both more prominent due to their wealth and connections and also left behind because of systemic poverty within elder minority queer lives. Trans people are facing an ever-living backlash just simply by existing. Every intersection has its own core issues that needs addressing.
There are many LGBTQI+ flags for every aspect of our broad communion, each signals struggle and hope. The choice to use those flags is our own, a display of pride and rebellion against those who say we should not exist. Rainbows should be a source of hope and inspiration, showing that after every deluge life does get better. If we want to uplift the marginalised within the LGBTQI+ community we need to see Pride as a 24/7/365 movement, not just a halcyon summer haze of festivals, parades, and booze. Yes, many of us do write, talk, protest, and advocate year-round, but it needs to move beyond simply putting a rainbow flag on everything and calling it a queer space. We, the collective non-cis/straight we, must uplift those at the margins, working together to show that the pride we have in our identities is more than just how much money we can spend. We must cut through and show that Pride is as much a rebellion against oppression as it is about celebration of identity. This does take commitment, it does take personal sacrifice, and not all of us can, for our own safety, embrace this too loudly or vocally; but, even if you spend time online helping talk with people cracking their egg or fund raising for a homeless shelter or some small action that builds us all up, it helps fight for those who would overwise be left in the wilderness.
In the end, rebellions only succeed when enough voices convince enough people that their rights are a must, not a luxury. We have come along way since the first Pride riot, and while we have a measure of rights, it is up to us all to push the movement 24/7/365 in the best way we can. And yes, wear the rainbow with pride.
