4 ms·

Hello, Serious question here. If being gay is not a choice but a preference you have at birth why do we need pride and parades? I mean it's not like you did an

Hello, Serious question here. If being gay is not a choice but a preference you have at birth why do we need pride and parades? I mean it's not like you did anything or chose to be that way, you just kind of are. As a person who supports equality, no matter race, sex, religion, etc. this has always perplexed me.

lbotos 11y ago
Because of oppression/trials/tribulations.
irremediable 11y ago
To counter oppression. It's not so much "pride" in the sense of an achievement, but in the sense of not feeling shame for who you are, and publicly asserting that. It's also valuable from a visibility standpoint.
- nullrouted 11y ago
  So basically we should have "Irish Pride", "Polish Pride", "Jewish Pride" etc. days as well? Plenty of groups have overcome oppression but don't really have pride days. Just seems a bit weird.
  - petercooper 11y ago
    I take it you've not seen any major city on St Patrick's Day.. ;)
  - irremediable 11y ago
    Plenty of groups have overcome oppression, agreed. Many of the groups that march in Pride parades are not among those groups. If you want to make an argument based on ethnicity, then a close analogue would probably be black Americans -- who do have some Pride-like events, e.g. Black History Month. I'm reminded of when people complain about Black History Month and ask, "When's White History Month, eh?" And the answer is that every month is White History Month. Because white people have more or less wiped black people out of popular history. This erasure is just as present for LGBTQ+ people.
  - rosser 11y ago
    There's nothing that says any oppressed group can't designate their own pride celebration. I think you're making a common mistake in seeing the existence of this phenomenon that is tied to a certain class (or related group of classes) of people, and interpreting that existence as being somehow normative for all similar classes of people. It's not.
  - meichenf 11y ago
    So maybe something like Irish-American Heritage Month (March), Polish American Heritage Month (October), or Jewish American Heritage Month (May)?
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    Where exactly do you live that you have not seen these kinds of days and events and parades and so on all the time? (If you're American, I don't know how you can live in the US and not have noticed this)
notahacker 11y ago
Pride is largely a reaction to society's attempts to shame people. Plus the parades are a big party, which shouldn't need further explanation. On the subject of the original post, that failure rate graph looks surprisingly high... at least it shows I'm not the only one it didn't work for.
tomphoolery 11y ago
We need it because there are quite a few people in America who do not believe in equality in the least, even though they may say they do. Being gay is a choice...it's a choice to believe in who you really are, and not try to be something you're not, and furthermore, to LOVE whoever you become. For a white, heterosexual, adult man like myself, that choice comes with no pre-defined societal restrictions. But stray from any one of those character traits, and suddenly society finds you reprehensible. I'm not saying the choice to believe in and love yourself is any harder or easier for anyone on the planet, but what I am saying is that inherently, there are a lot of hurdles to get over when one chooses to "come out" as being gay. A member of my band is gay, and he spent several years during the first years I knew him hiding that fact from the world. Only when I began to really get closer to him did I find out his "secret". He asked me if I cared, and the look in his eyes was that of fear. Fear that I would immediately reject him because of his internal chemistry. But I didn't, and we remain friends and band-mates to this day. He later grew up a bit and came to find out that being gay isn't so bad, in fact there are a lot of things about being gay that are rewarding and awesome. He's much more comfortable in who he is today, and much happier as a result of it. His choice to act upon and embrace his homosexuality, rather than shy away from it, made him an all-around better person. That's pride.
- nullrouted 11y ago
  But pride in being who you are? I mean....okay I guess and I get the point you are trying to make and the tough experiences people have. But.... I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    They aren't called gay pride anymore, just pride. Almost everyone is welcome.
oldmanjay 11y ago
Words are politics, particularly for people who are traditionally disenfranchised. In a sense, the constant fine-tuning of speech for desired connotations is a way to get the feeling of control over an uncontrollable situation. I guess what I'm saying is some things just don't have a logical explanation, but that's what happens when you have all these billions of people in the world.
morgante 11y ago
Sexuality isn't a choice, but coming out is. Pride is important to show that people are proud of who they are and are glad they made that choice.
- jsn117 11y ago
  well put
delecti 11y ago
It's not so much pride like in an accomplishment, but rather pride in contrast to the shame that society enforced.
andresmanz 11y ago
I think I know what you mean. I guess it's quite comparable to people who are proud of being born in their contries. In my opinion, pride is kind of the wrong word for that. I think what is often called pride is actually the will to (publicly) stand by who they are. With the parades they can express that. Maybe it's a "we know you hate us for being different, but we are many, so it's quite normal to be gay" thing. I think, though, that they can be proud of themselves when they publicly stand by their sexual orientation in a world full homophobics.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
leejoramo 11y ago
"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride" The Allusionist podcast had a episode about why the word "pride" was intensionally used. Others in this thread have mentioned societal shame that was put on gays. But it was more than that. It was also a deep internal shame and self-hate that many homosexuals felt about themselves. And remember, this was started in the late 1960's when it was almost unheard of for someone to come out and be open about being gay. http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/pride http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/pride
jccc 11y ago
Serious answer here. I am a man married to a man. I dislike "Pride" events and tacky rainbows, and the language used on my behalf by some of the activist types in my demographic, and I'd be happy to engage you with a sincere defense of "Pride" given those qualifications. But: I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821964 When you start talking like that, you've given up pretending that your original question was sincere. You're trying to make a point, not trying to understand. Let's absolutely have these conversations, but please begin them honestly.

lbotos 11y ago

Because of oppression/trials/tribulations.

irremediable 11y ago

To counter oppression. It's not so much "pride" in the sense of an achievement, but in the sense of not feeling shame for who you are, and publicly asserting that. It's also valuable from a visibility standpoint.

nullrouted 11y ago
So basically we should have "Irish Pride", "Polish Pride", "Jewish Pride" etc. days as well? Plenty of groups have overcome oppression but don't really have pride days. Just seems a bit weird.
- petercooper 11y ago
  I take it you've not seen any major city on St Patrick's Day.. ;)
- irremediable 11y ago
  Plenty of groups have overcome oppression, agreed. Many of the groups that march in Pride parades are not among those groups. If you want to make an argument based on ethnicity, then a close analogue would probably be black Americans -- who do have some Pride-like events, e.g. Black History Month. I'm reminded of when people complain about Black History Month and ask, "When's White History Month, eh?" And the answer is that every month is White History Month. Because white people have more or less wiped black people out of popular history. This erasure is just as present for LGBTQ+ people.
- rosser 11y ago
  There's nothing that says any oppressed group can't designate their own pride celebration. I think you're making a common mistake in seeing the existence of this phenomenon that is tied to a certain class (or related group of classes) of people, and interpreting that existence as being somehow normative for all similar classes of people. It's not.
- meichenf 11y ago
  So maybe something like Irish-American Heritage Month (March), Polish American Heritage Month (October), or Jewish American Heritage Month (May)?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  Where exactly do you live that you have not seen these kinds of days and events and parades and so on all the time? (If you're American, I don't know how you can live in the US and not have noticed this)

notahacker 11y ago

Pride is largely a reaction to society's attempts to shame people. Plus the parades are a big party, which shouldn't need further explanation. On the subject of the original post, that failure rate graph looks surprisingly high... at least it shows I'm not the only one it didn't work for.

tomphoolery 11y ago

We need it because there are quite a few people in America who do not believe in equality in the least, even though they may say they do. Being gay is a choice...it's a choice to believe in who you really are, and not try to be something you're not, and furthermore, to LOVE whoever you become. For a white, heterosexual, adult man like myself, that choice comes with no pre-defined societal restrictions. But stray from any one of those character traits, and suddenly society finds you reprehensible. I'm not saying the choice to believe in and love yourself is any harder or easier for anyone on the planet, but what I am saying is that inherently, there are a lot of hurdles to get over when one chooses to "come out" as being gay. A member of my band is gay, and he spent several years during the first years I knew him hiding that fact from the world. Only when I began to really get closer to him did I find out his "secret". He asked me if I cared, and the look in his eyes was that of fear. Fear that I would immediately reject him because of his internal chemistry. But I didn't, and we remain friends and band-mates to this day. He later grew up a bit and came to find out that being gay isn't so bad, in fact there are a lot of things about being gay that are rewarding and awesome. He's much more comfortable in who he is today, and much happier as a result of it. His choice to act upon and embrace his homosexuality, rather than shy away from it, made him an all-around better person. That's pride.

nullrouted 11y ago
But pride in being who you are? I mean....okay I guess and I get the point you are trying to make and the tough experiences people have. But.... I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then.
- DanBC 11y ago
  They aren't called gay pride anymore, just pride. Almost everyone is welcome.

oldmanjay 11y ago

Words are politics, particularly for people who are traditionally disenfranchised. In a sense, the constant fine-tuning of speech for desired connotations is a way to get the feeling of control over an uncontrollable situation. I guess what I'm saying is some things just don't have a logical explanation, but that's what happens when you have all these billions of people in the world.

morgante 11y ago

Sexuality isn't a choice, but coming out is. Pride is important to show that people are proud of who they are and are glad they made that choice.

jsn117 11y ago
well put

delecti 11y ago

It's not so much pride like in an accomplishment, but rather pride in contrast to the shame that society enforced.

andresmanz 11y ago

I think I know what you mean. I guess it's quite comparable to people who are proud of being born in their contries. In my opinion, pride is kind of the wrong word for that. I think what is often called pride is actually the will to (publicly) stand by who they are. With the parades they can express that. Maybe it's a "we know you hate us for being different, but we are many, so it's quite normal to be gay" thing. I think, though, that they can be proud of themselves when they publicly stand by their sexual orientation in a world full homophobics.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

leejoramo 11y ago

"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride" The Allusionist podcast had a episode about why the word "pride" was intensionally used. Others in this thread have mentioned societal shame that was put on gays. But it was more than that. It was also a deep internal shame and self-hate that many homosexuals felt about themselves. And remember, this was started in the late 1960's when it was almost unheard of for someone to come out and be open about being gay. http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/pride http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/pride

jccc 11y ago

Serious answer here. I am a man married to a man. I dislike "Pride" events and tacky rainbows, and the language used on my behalf by some of the activist types in my demographic, and I'd be happy to engage you with a sincere defense of "Pride" given those qualifications. But: I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821964 When you start talking like that, you've given up pretending that your original question was sincere. You're trying to make a point, not trying to understand. Let's absolutely have these conversations, but please begin them honestly.