At least, unlike me, you're not a white guy with a beard
At pride rallys I've been spat at
I remember years ago, not longer after I came out to my twinsy (not that she didn't already know) and friends so we'd be talking about 2006, it was when London held Europride. I was just coming up to my 15th and was already out to my friends but not my family, this was 2 months before I came out to them.
It was amazing. Literally hundreds of thousands of all over Europe if not global all there from one thing and it was the most fun i'd had in my life to that point, also met a hot girl around my age from Germany who was staying for a week but that's a story for never but a great memory for me.
Anywhooo the point...
I didn't go to many more after that, just sporadically turned up for the pub crawl. Once I came out to my family it wasn't such a big deal anymore. It wasn't something I needed to shout out about. It was great in my early teens it was a whole new thing for me but once i'd starter dating properly being a lesbian was just who I was with not my defining personality trait so the idea of being "out and proud" seemed silly. Outside of the person i'm dating I don't care about public opinion on my sex life, hers is the only voice that matters.
Don't worry, i'm getting to it...
After many years of not going it got to 2015. I had been with my current girlfriend for a short while at this point and we wanted to do something together so took a holiday which happened to link up with the date of the London gay pride parade so fuck it, why not.
The whole mood, for me at least, was entirely different. Whereas when I first went it was people having fun despite the abuse and oppression we had, I say we but I had it easy compared to most, I just had a shitty family to deal with some people had real physical and mental abuse to live through. But there we were just having fun being who we were.
The recent one felt more like trying to tell those "cis white men" we were better than them and I didn't like that. I've never been in the man hating camp and the idea of trying to appear better than someone purely for our sexual preferences was utter bullshit so we left and ended up catching a late flight to Spain which turned out a much better holiday even though my pasty skin was red within hours of landing.
So, that point.
It seems our once loving community has gone from trying to show people we'll live happily no matter what they say to trying to cram their sexuality down other peoples throats, metaphorically speaking of course.
I used to love being part of the LGBT community. I used to love the feeling of being there for others despite our differences. Now it's all about trying to use those differences against others and i'm not quite so proud of it anymore. I love who I am but I don't love what the community seems to be turning into.
edited for typo's. Still missed some I think, damn keyboard gremlins.