June 26, 2022
Pride. I never got it. I’m not proud to be queer. Just like I’m not proud of being white or German. Why should I be proud of something I didn’t choose and had no influence on?
But I get it now: queer pride is pride as an answer to being shamed. And maybe that’s why I don’t like the whole pride thing—I don’t like to admit that I am, too, being shamed.
I am being shamed even though I have a pretty good straight passing, I think, and people identify my body relatively easily as female. And I am white and blond and my name sounds German—I don’t bother them too much.
Some people misgender me because short hair and black clothes signal masculinity to them. Usually, I don’t care. But not caring is work, too. And so is dealing with all the small aggressions: »Uhhh, can I join?!« shouts a 13-year-old speeding by on an e-scooter when I kiss my partner on the side walk.
I also shame myself. My story doesn’t begin with »Since I was a little kid, I knew …«, so I wonder: »Maybe I’m not really queer. Maybe it is a choice after all«. I was no tomboy and I didn’t play soccer. I loved barbie dolls, crafts and baking. So if I wasn’t queer from the beginning, something bad must have happened to me, right, otherwise I would be normal? No-one says this kind of thing anymore, but it’s still present, unsaid, internally.
My own internalised homophobia often turns into paranoia: »Is this person just rude to me—or are they homophobic?« On the street, I let go of my partner’s hand when we walk by a group of men, I avoid eye contact and ignore the stares that still come, even in a big city, in Germany, in 2022.
Today there is Pride Month and Pride Parades and rainbows everywhere. Capitalism has made queerness so cool that companies can’t afford not to support the rights of queer people.
Sidenote in January 2024: In the current political climate, I am not sure if this is still true. US companies like Meta and Amazon end their diversity, equity and inclusion programs and Apple has to defend keeping theirs against the pressure of their shareholders.
But marketing ploys like Pride Month depoliticise the symbols, and blot out the event that the parades commemorate: In June 1969, at the Stonewall Inn on New York’s Christopher Street, queer people of color fought back against a police force that regularly raided their bars. Stonewall was a riot.
It wasn’t about being colorful and crazy or spending your money on products from companies that added a rainbow in their logo. It’s about defending the place of queer people in the public sphere, with pride as a strategy of self-assertion against being shamed into silence and inexistence.
June 26, 2022
Pride. I never got it. I’m not proud to be queer. Just like I’m not proud of being white or German. Why should I be proud of something I didn’t choose and had no influence on?
But I get it now: queer pride is pride as an answer to being shamed. And maybe that’s why I don’t like the whole pride thing—I don’t like to admit that I am, too, being shamed.
I am being shamed even though I have a pretty good straight passing, I think, and people identify my body relatively easily as female. And I am white and blond and my name sounds German—I don’t bother them too much.
Some people misgender me because short hair and black clothes signal masculinity to them. Usually, I don’t care. But not caring is work, too. And so is dealing with all the small aggressions: »Uhhh, can I join?!« shouts a 13-year-old speeding by on an e-scooter when I kiss my partner on the side walk.
I also shame myself. My story doesn’t begin with »Since I was a little kid, I knew …«, so I wonder: »Maybe I’m not really queer. Maybe it is a choice after all«. I was no tomboy and I didn’t play soccer. I loved barbie dolls, crafts and baking. So if I wasn’t queer from the beginning, something bad must have happened to me, right, otherwise I would be normal? No-one says this kind of thing anymore, but it’s still present, unsaid, internally.
My own internalised homophobia often turns into paranoia: »Is this person just rude to me—or are they homophobic?« On the street, I let go of my partner’s hand when we walk by a group of men, I avoid eye contact and ignore the stares that still come, even in a big city, in Germany, in 2022.
Today there is Pride Month and Pride Parades and rainbows everywhere. Capitalism has made queerness so cool that companies can’t afford not to support the rights of queer people.
Sidenote in January 2024: In the current political climate, I am not sure if this is still true. US companies like Meta and Amazon end their diversity, equity and inclusion programs and Apple has to defend keeping theirs against the pressure of their shareholders.
But marketing ploys like Pride Month depoliticise the symbols, and blot out the event that the parades commemorate: In June 1969, at the Stonewall Inn on New York’s Christopher Street, queer people of color fought back against a police force that regularly raided their bars. Stonewall was a riot.
It wasn’t about being colorful and crazy or spending your money on products from companies that added a rainbow in their logo. It’s about defending the place of queer people in the public sphere, with pride as a strategy of self-assertion against being shamed into silence and inexistence.
More Blogposts
No really,
you should subscribe to my newsletter.
You’ve already subscribed to far too many newsletters, I know. But my newsletter is really great! At least that’s what it says in the spontaneous replys I get each time I send one out.
So if you want to be the first to know what I’m working on, what events Im organizing and what books I’m recommending,
More Blogposts
contact
0176-28903746
No really,
you should subscribe to my newsletter.
You’ve already subscribed to far too many newsletters, I know. But my newsletter is really great! At least that’s what it says in the spontaneous replys I get each time I send one out.
So if you want to be the first to know what I’m working on, what events Im organizing and what books I’m recommending,