It is a time of unprecedented legal attacks on the LGBTQ community in the US. There were 520 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed in 2023, and a record 70 were enacted. Meanwhile antiqueer violence increased dramatically with the rise of the MAGA movement - murders of trans people increased 2-3 times.

Pride started with the Stonewall uprising and the subsequent protest marches for queer liberation. But increasingly, Pride is not about standing for queer rights. Pride should be a platform to call out the attacks on the queer community and organize action in response.

Instead, local Pride organizations pander to large corporations for financial support. In the process, companies who spend the rest of the year funding anti-LGBTQ politicians, become the face of Pride.

These companies contributed billions of dollars to politicians who are trying to steal queer rights, but all of them promote themselves as queer-friendly through Pride:

• AT&T
• Altria - who was “recognized for their support of the LGBTQ community”
• Amazon
• Union Pacific
• Disney
• Pfizer
• CVS

Companies like Target are cheered in Pride parades and applauded for selling rainbow merchandise, but they bail on LGBTQ support as soon as they get conservative pushback, and they also give large amounts of money to anti-queer politicians.

Beyond the hypocrisy of this pinkwashing, pandering to these corporations pushes community members and groups that do support LGBTQ rights out of Pride to make room for corporate sponsors.

Trying to appease corporate sponsors increasingly sanitizes Pride. Messages about protecting community, fighting homophobic legislation, defending trans people, and solidarity with other anti-oppression movements are silenced or pushed to the side to appease sponsors and make Pride more appealing to as a large-scale, mainstream event.

On a cultural level, Pride is also sanitized to appeal to sponsors - less dancers, less kink, less leather men, less expression of public affection and sensuality, less humor, less raunch, and more clothing. Pride is about expressing, celebrating, and protecting individuality. Despite what right-wingers say, it has always been mostly PG-13 in public, but every little piece we give away to respectability politics steals something from the community.

How are there constant arguments about whether kink belongs at Pride - despite kink and queer communities long-term support of one another - but we don’t discuss whether anti-queer corporations belong at Pride?!

Pride has become about “having a big tent” for all sorts of queer people and supporters, and inclusivity is good. But Pride had been about LQBTQ liberation from the start. With a Supreme Court stating they are not only considering making gay marriage illegal, but making being homosexual illegal, we need the platform to stand against oppression.

If that offends conservative queers who vote for people who threaten queer rights, good. They should be uncomfortable with their choice to be destructive to their own community.

Pride needs to be about queer rights and expressing individuality - not having a feel good party with companies and people who do harm to the community.