Time To Clean Up Pride Parades

A bit about me first. I am pansexual and fluid gender. I also spent years in an organization that raised awareness of the LGBTQ+ community and was a founding member of the group. I support our cause with a deep passion and want the best for my people in this wonderful community of great souls.

I’ve not been to a pride parade in person for years. I’m not able to march, and I’m not able to stand for long to watch either, I’m just too disabled. However, I’ve seen a great deal of videos of pride events. It’s about these parades that I am going to speak about.

There is a lot of good things in these parades. They show the best side of the community and elements that should be celebrated. They show the desire to hold onto our rights in a world that often looks upon us as evil. This perception can’t be farther from the truth – we are just people like any other group. We love, we give, we work, we create, we protect those who need protection. The heightened visibility of the various groups in our community at these events is a wonderful thing.

There is a perception that the LGBTQ+ community is fill with perverts. This is where the parades go south. Men in a tinny tight Speedo, or a jock strap hanging it all out in front of the public is not acceptable to me at all. Worse yet, some parades allow nude people to be part of the event.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m full-on a nudist, but there is a time and a place for social nudity. Being that this tends to be sexualized in these events, it’s wrong on more than one level. Letting it all hang out and/or dancing in a provocative manner in front of children who attend these events is just not OK at all. This shows the wrong message to the public. We are trying to be distinctive for positive reasons, not showing that the people who hate are right about us being perverts.

I realize that a music video does basically the same thing – flaunting sexuality to make money for the artist in the video. This is also full-on wrong to me. Any time the audience is not controllable, I have issue with that kind of behavior and the overt sexuality of it.

Trust me, the vast majority of the LGBTQ+ community is not over sexed and does not have the desire to flaunt their sexual side to the world. I think it’s time to stop allowing the bars that put on the show of dancers in next to nothing. I also think it's time to stop allowing the leather bears in their jock straps and bondage harnesses march with us. I desire to show the world only a positive side to who I am. It’s time we cleaned up the pride parades. The events behind closed doors with a control to who gets in, is the time and place to let it all hang out and express that side of us, not in front of the TV camera’s and children watching with their family.