This year, Tesla are among the proud sponsors of Manchester Pride, while Elon Musk speaks at elaborate length about the disgust he feels for his trans child. But Mark Fletcher's making out like a bandit so all is right in the world.
MCC have had opportunities to put pressure on Pride plc and they never have. I don't know if it's cronyism, or complacency, or just the casual contempt for queer culture if it isn't making money that brought us the Portland Street Village SRF.
The fact that some of the most meaningful alt pride stuff this year has ended up in KAMPUS, the dystopian perma-rental fever dream...I dunno. Someone smarter than me can make a witty point here about dramatic irony and late stage capitalism. I mostly just want to be sick
Literally everything these days is about what can be flogged to people, how much profit can be made. The meaning of everything is lost. Disgusted they would take Musk's money given his views on LGBTQ+ people and also his views on poc and his connections to the far right / riots.
It's not just Alternative Pride (cracking as that sounds!) that's sprung up. The profusion of smaller prides in Greater Manchester is, in part, a response to the failure of Manchester Pride to be, well, much of a Pride. Next weekend is also Didsbury Pride (Saturday 31st, 12-9PM) which is, flatly, cute as heck and always a joy to attend. These Prides offer more of a space that feels community-driven than Manchester Pride's giant money machine.
But it's not just a question of scale either, I'd say. Last summer I went to Seattle Pride - another city with a gay district, a huge Pride parade, lots of corporate sponsors. Marched in the parade, went round Capitol Hill street market. It felt far more like a community event than the fenced-in, wrist-band entry, pack Strongbow down as many throats as possible nightmare that Manchester Pride has become. Even more so, because Seattle Pride is free - they use bucket collections and corporate money to keep it so. If you're going to have companies in the parade, make them pay enough that the actual queer folks who turn up don't need too.
That's the thing with Manchester Pride, though - money. They want to charge queer people to access the Gay Village for Pride - the wristbands, the checks, the aggro from the security guards. One year I was denied entry through one way to attend the vigil because I didn't have a wristband, and had to try other entrances until I was able to slip in. They want to charge us, in a city where something like 1/3 kids grow up in poverty, £50 a throw to access our spaces - and employ people to try and stop folks walking down a public street so they can enforce this. But it's okay, they say, because we slapped a flat £2.50 on each ticket price to go to charity. Regardless of how much you pay - the VIP tickets go for much more - you can contribute a flat amount. So proportionally folks who can afford to pay more, contribute less. And we put the ticket prices up by doing this.
This is all too much. I was on the Pride Protest march in 2021, because the way Fletcher and his clique have treated our Pride is disgusting. They just want to run a music festival for straight people - so let them, clear them off Canal Street, give them a country park on the August Bank Holiday and let them. There are too many urgent causes for queer people - from trans rights, to homelessness, to drug abuse, to more - for a city with a queer community this large to be left with a Pride so entirely unfit for purpose, so utterly disinterested in supporting charities that are not themselves, that wants to put a wall around Canal Street (so bad one year we called it "Glamtamano Bay") and charge us. Manchester deserves better. In Didsbury, Levenshulme, Salford - and maybe Alternative Pride (I say maybe, I've been to the first three, not that one, but I do hope so) we see glimmers of a better Pride. Let's pour our energies into using those to do the work that needs to be done, and leave Canal Street this weekend to folks who think the biggest issue facing queer folks in this country this year is whether they'll pay £10 or £11 for Strongbow.
Stop calling us ‘qu**r’ and using that term to describe the lesbian (Stormé deLarverie) and gay men who were largely involved in the Stonewall Riots. It’s abusive.
It's been used in a positive way since the late 80s, early 90s at least. Act Up used it during their AIDS activism. We've had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it", Queer studies, Queer literature, "lgbtQ" and many many other examples of it being used positively in the last 30 or so years. Whether you personally like the word or not, it's denying reality to pretend it hasn't been reclaimed. Young LGBT+ people today have often never heard it used as a slur / abusive term and only ever known it used positively. There are people in the community who don't personally use it as a word to describe themselves, some because they still associate it with being used as a slur, but many more do. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it to describe themselves personally - you don't have to identify as queer and that's fine- but trying to stop everyone else using it the way it has been used for decades is a pointless endeavor. Lesbian has also been used as an abusive term and not every woman who loves women use the word lesbian (some prefer gay or queer) but it doesn't mean we are going to stop using the word to refer generally to women who are attracted to women just because some don't like or use the word.
And I was watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in 2003 and telling my friends on the phone "gotta go, it's my queer time" when it came on haha. "Gay" was by far the bigger insult then, and I got called "that lesbian" as an insult at secondary school (I am bi but that nuance was lost on them). Gay was used to mean "bad" daily, and still is in schools now. I don't think we should stop using gay, lesbian, or queer though. People have different experiences with each word but none is universal so we can't let our experiences speak for anyone but ourselves.
‘we can't let our experiences speak for anyone but ourselves’
Then stop trying to speak for me.
And the word ‘lesbian’ is not inherently derogatory - you have turned things on their head to dress the word for my sexual orientation up as a term of abuse and yet you are willing to try to bully me into accepting a word which is inherently derogatory being used to describe lesbians.
Under the blanket: people who's sexual orientation and/or gender identity isn't cis and straight.
Long reclaimed: when the phrase 'queer theory' started getting bandied about in the 90s, it was a semi-confrontational language choice but reflected an increasing use. It's certainly in widespread use now by people who meet your definition - I don't know that a majority of us use it to self-identify but I'd bet an imaginary tenner a majority of us are comfortable with its use. And a very large majority under 40.
I’m in my 30s and you are talking nonsense. Sounds like you are a lot older and are unaware of its continued use as a term of abuse. It was an is an abusive term for people based on sexual orientation and a quick look at social media would tell you that. Lots of examples of ‘filthy qu**r’, ‘dirty qu**r’ and other such posts.
I don’t know what you are trying to get at with by ‘people who meet your definition’?
You said it was an insult to gay men and lesbians specifically. And absolutely everything can be, and is, used as a slur. Conversely, pretty much everything can be, and is, reclaimed - with queer being one of the most widespread and usually least controversial examples of this. As Anna has said, you don't have to like any given term, you certainly don't have to identify with it, but censoring others' use of widely accepted language is unreasonable imo.
After the 'Protest Pride' movement held are march in 2021 we thought things would change, and they did for a while, but this year it slipped back to the old ways and was utterly horrific. Overcrowding to dangerous levels, 248 floats 9/10ths of which were just companies slapping a rainbow onto the side of a truck as a rolling advertisement board.
Pride has got too big for the village, the balance has tipped too far from a charity event/ protest into a music festival, id have gone to Creamfields the same weekend if i wanted that.
The event needs splitting again so the music stage is away from the village so it removes the 'straight coked up women' who just want to be there to see the music acts and leave a safer environment that the event actually has meaning for and support the village year round.
Im not against paying for the event, i realise infrastructure and security needs paying for, i am against paying money for pop stars to come, sing for 20 minutes and bring a load of idiots with them into the event. To be honest, you could probably get rid of them, not have their overheads for the event and draw a smaller crowd but still make money.
Quite how Manchester Pride expect to host Europride in 2028 is beyond me....
Never visit Manchester nowadays without the gays being fairly pleased with themselves somewhere. Like you say, Pride started as a brave thing. But now almost everybody is either gay or wishes they were and it's all just another reason to get loud and leathered. Time for a just-get-on-with-it movement?
Everybody certainly doesn't wish they were gay. 45% of LGB young people and 65% of trans YP are bullied for being LGBT in Britain's schools. More than half of gay men in Britain are afraid to hold their partner's hand in public. Most LGBT young people still hear the phrases "that's so gay" or "you're so gay" regularly at school. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation have increased by 112% between 2018 and 2023. 24% of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ with the main reason given for their homelessness being coming out to unaccepting parents. I'd love if we had come so far that being gay was something people wished to be. In reality, it is still very difficult to be gay with risks of bullying, hate crimes, discrimination, and homelessness still big issues. We still need Pride. Some enjoy the partying side of it and "getting loud and leathered" (same can be said of a lot of events attended by mostly straight people!), some prefer quieter events, and some use it as an opportunity to raise awareness of issues and to protest. Either way, until we solve all the problems above Pride will continue on.
I don't see why people who aren't LGBT+ or who aren't interested in the event should care about Pride events existing. There are plenty of events, festivals, holidays, sports matches etc that I have no interest in but I just say it's not my thing, but good for those who like it, and move on.
Ironic comment when, for example, my own homophobic parents who made me homeless at the age of 20 (in 2013) used the term ‘qu**r’ which you are bending over backwards to defend.
Great piece.
This year, Tesla are among the proud sponsors of Manchester Pride, while Elon Musk speaks at elaborate length about the disgust he feels for his trans child. But Mark Fletcher's making out like a bandit so all is right in the world.
MCC have had opportunities to put pressure on Pride plc and they never have. I don't know if it's cronyism, or complacency, or just the casual contempt for queer culture if it isn't making money that brought us the Portland Street Village SRF.
The fact that some of the most meaningful alt pride stuff this year has ended up in KAMPUS, the dystopian perma-rental fever dream...I dunno. Someone smarter than me can make a witty point here about dramatic irony and late stage capitalism. I mostly just want to be sick
Literally everything these days is about what can be flogged to people, how much profit can be made. The meaning of everything is lost. Disgusted they would take Musk's money given his views on LGBTQ+ people and also his views on poc and his connections to the far right / riots.
It's not just Alternative Pride (cracking as that sounds!) that's sprung up. The profusion of smaller prides in Greater Manchester is, in part, a response to the failure of Manchester Pride to be, well, much of a Pride. Next weekend is also Didsbury Pride (Saturday 31st, 12-9PM) which is, flatly, cute as heck and always a joy to attend. These Prides offer more of a space that feels community-driven than Manchester Pride's giant money machine.
But it's not just a question of scale either, I'd say. Last summer I went to Seattle Pride - another city with a gay district, a huge Pride parade, lots of corporate sponsors. Marched in the parade, went round Capitol Hill street market. It felt far more like a community event than the fenced-in, wrist-band entry, pack Strongbow down as many throats as possible nightmare that Manchester Pride has become. Even more so, because Seattle Pride is free - they use bucket collections and corporate money to keep it so. If you're going to have companies in the parade, make them pay enough that the actual queer folks who turn up don't need too.
That's the thing with Manchester Pride, though - money. They want to charge queer people to access the Gay Village for Pride - the wristbands, the checks, the aggro from the security guards. One year I was denied entry through one way to attend the vigil because I didn't have a wristband, and had to try other entrances until I was able to slip in. They want to charge us, in a city where something like 1/3 kids grow up in poverty, £50 a throw to access our spaces - and employ people to try and stop folks walking down a public street so they can enforce this. But it's okay, they say, because we slapped a flat £2.50 on each ticket price to go to charity. Regardless of how much you pay - the VIP tickets go for much more - you can contribute a flat amount. So proportionally folks who can afford to pay more, contribute less. And we put the ticket prices up by doing this.
This is all too much. I was on the Pride Protest march in 2021, because the way Fletcher and his clique have treated our Pride is disgusting. They just want to run a music festival for straight people - so let them, clear them off Canal Street, give them a country park on the August Bank Holiday and let them. There are too many urgent causes for queer people - from trans rights, to homelessness, to drug abuse, to more - for a city with a queer community this large to be left with a Pride so entirely unfit for purpose, so utterly disinterested in supporting charities that are not themselves, that wants to put a wall around Canal Street (so bad one year we called it "Glamtamano Bay") and charge us. Manchester deserves better. In Didsbury, Levenshulme, Salford - and maybe Alternative Pride (I say maybe, I've been to the first three, not that one, but I do hope so) we see glimmers of a better Pride. Let's pour our energies into using those to do the work that needs to be done, and leave Canal Street this weekend to folks who think the biggest issue facing queer folks in this country this year is whether they'll pay £10 or £11 for Strongbow.
Excellent balanced article, with full exploration of concerns and suggestions. Thank you! I don't think I can add anything else.
Stop calling us ‘qu**r’ and using that term to describe the lesbian (Stormé deLarverie) and gay men who were largely involved in the Stonewall Riots. It’s abusive.
Plenty of people - including me and presumably including the author - are happy with it as a long-reclaimed blanket term. It's not abusive.
It’s not ‘long reclaimed’ at all and it’s not a ‘blanket term’ at all - what do you claim that all under that ‘blanket’ have in common?
You don’t get to consent to an abusive term being used for others.
It's been used in a positive way since the late 80s, early 90s at least. Act Up used it during their AIDS activism. We've had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it", Queer studies, Queer literature, "lgbtQ" and many many other examples of it being used positively in the last 30 or so years. Whether you personally like the word or not, it's denying reality to pretend it hasn't been reclaimed. Young LGBT+ people today have often never heard it used as a slur / abusive term and only ever known it used positively. There are people in the community who don't personally use it as a word to describe themselves, some because they still associate it with being used as a slur, but many more do. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it to describe themselves personally - you don't have to identify as queer and that's fine- but trying to stop everyone else using it the way it has been used for decades is a pointless endeavor. Lesbian has also been used as an abusive term and not every woman who loves women use the word lesbian (some prefer gay or queer) but it doesn't mean we are going to stop using the word to refer generally to women who are attracted to women just because some don't like or use the word.
Sure thing, which is why people were attacking me around ~2010 when I was first coming out with it.
And I was watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in 2003 and telling my friends on the phone "gotta go, it's my queer time" when it came on haha. "Gay" was by far the bigger insult then, and I got called "that lesbian" as an insult at secondary school (I am bi but that nuance was lost on them). Gay was used to mean "bad" daily, and still is in schools now. I don't think we should stop using gay, lesbian, or queer though. People have different experiences with each word but none is universal so we can't let our experiences speak for anyone but ourselves.
‘we can't let our experiences speak for anyone but ourselves’
Then stop trying to speak for me.
And the word ‘lesbian’ is not inherently derogatory - you have turned things on their head to dress the word for my sexual orientation up as a term of abuse and yet you are willing to try to bully me into accepting a word which is inherently derogatory being used to describe lesbians.
Under the blanket: people who's sexual orientation and/or gender identity isn't cis and straight.
Long reclaimed: when the phrase 'queer theory' started getting bandied about in the 90s, it was a semi-confrontational language choice but reflected an increasing use. It's certainly in widespread use now by people who meet your definition - I don't know that a majority of us use it to self-identify but I'd bet an imaginary tenner a majority of us are comfortable with its use. And a very large majority under 40.
I’m in my 30s and you are talking nonsense. Sounds like you are a lot older and are unaware of its continued use as a term of abuse. It was an is an abusive term for people based on sexual orientation and a quick look at social media would tell you that. Lots of examples of ‘filthy qu**r’, ‘dirty qu**r’ and other such posts.
I don’t know what you are trying to get at with by ‘people who meet your definition’?
You said it was an insult to gay men and lesbians specifically. And absolutely everything can be, and is, used as a slur. Conversely, pretty much everything can be, and is, reclaimed - with queer being one of the most widespread and usually least controversial examples of this. As Anna has said, you don't have to like any given term, you certainly don't have to identify with it, but censoring others' use of widely accepted language is unreasonable imo.
I'm also in my 30s fwiw.
No, a slur isn’t the same thing as an insult.
You claim that it is the ‘least controversial’ based on what evidence, exactly?
I know plenty of people who don’t like it but don’t want to raise their voice in case they are attacked.
Absolutely spot on!
After the 'Protest Pride' movement held are march in 2021 we thought things would change, and they did for a while, but this year it slipped back to the old ways and was utterly horrific. Overcrowding to dangerous levels, 248 floats 9/10ths of which were just companies slapping a rainbow onto the side of a truck as a rolling advertisement board.
Pride has got too big for the village, the balance has tipped too far from a charity event/ protest into a music festival, id have gone to Creamfields the same weekend if i wanted that.
The event needs splitting again so the music stage is away from the village so it removes the 'straight coked up women' who just want to be there to see the music acts and leave a safer environment that the event actually has meaning for and support the village year round.
Im not against paying for the event, i realise infrastructure and security needs paying for, i am against paying money for pop stars to come, sing for 20 minutes and bring a load of idiots with them into the event. To be honest, you could probably get rid of them, not have their overheads for the event and draw a smaller crowd but still make money.
Quite how Manchester Pride expect to host Europride in 2028 is beyond me....
Never visit Manchester nowadays without the gays being fairly pleased with themselves somewhere. Like you say, Pride started as a brave thing. But now almost everybody is either gay or wishes they were and it's all just another reason to get loud and leathered. Time for a just-get-on-with-it movement?
Everybody certainly doesn't wish they were gay. 45% of LGB young people and 65% of trans YP are bullied for being LGBT in Britain's schools. More than half of gay men in Britain are afraid to hold their partner's hand in public. Most LGBT young people still hear the phrases "that's so gay" or "you're so gay" regularly at school. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation have increased by 112% between 2018 and 2023. 24% of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ with the main reason given for their homelessness being coming out to unaccepting parents. I'd love if we had come so far that being gay was something people wished to be. In reality, it is still very difficult to be gay with risks of bullying, hate crimes, discrimination, and homelessness still big issues. We still need Pride. Some enjoy the partying side of it and "getting loud and leathered" (same can be said of a lot of events attended by mostly straight people!), some prefer quieter events, and some use it as an opportunity to raise awareness of issues and to protest. Either way, until we solve all the problems above Pride will continue on.
I don't see why people who aren't LGBT+ or who aren't interested in the event should care about Pride events existing. There are plenty of events, festivals, holidays, sports matches etc that I have no interest in but I just say it's not my thing, but good for those who like it, and move on.
Ironic comment when, for example, my own homophobic parents who made me homeless at the age of 20 (in 2013) used the term ‘qu**r’ which you are bending over backwards to defend.