Gay Globe Magazine: Editorial 160. The Painful Word: Pride

Image Roger-Luc Chayer and Gay Globe logo

Roger-Luc Chayer

Last June, a major Quebec corporation with establishments throughout the greater Montreal metropolitan area posted a message on its Facebook page celebrating Pride, highlighting the significance of this word to its clients and partners. The message was accompanied by a photo of four young people from different ethnic backgrounds who looked very happy and fulfilled.

However, reading the 350 reactions and more than 252 comments revealed that the word « Pride » still, and more than ever, causes significant pain, and not necessarily for people from LGBTQ+ communities. A large number of these messages were downright hateful, wishing death upon homosexuals, questioning their very existence, and responding to a crowd of other participants who publicly vented their venom under their own names, without any fear or concern about committing a hate crime. For many, these writings were clearly criminal. What can cause such harm with the word « Pride » in the end?

Personally, I don’t know. I had some fun, if we can use that word, replacing « Pride » with the names of certain participants, and the results are fascinating. Instead of reading « Celebrate Pride, » for example, we got « Celebrate Anna Brand, » « Celebrate Alex Pétoquin, » and so on. And you know what? As soon as you replace the word « Pride » with the name of some of these homophobes and insert it into their own replies, it becomes horrifying: it’s personalized hatred at its highest, and it honestly disgusted me!

If the term « Pride » disgusts you so much, replace it with « LGBTQ+ Equality, » « LGBTQ+ Passion, » « LGBTQ+ Respect, » or « LGBTQ+ Complicity, » and you’ll quickly realize that all this hatred makes no sense. For those who still question the importance of celebrating Pride, post a photo of two people of the same sex kissing on your Facebook page, and you’ll see that the hateful reactions won’t be long in coming. In the meantime, Pride is here to stay!

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