Dear Shaun,
I’m preparing for Pride Month. There are typically some fun perks when it comes to token straights showering us with guilt rainbows. Work always provides us with lunch in honor of sexual preferences and I get to buy a queer theme Miller Lite. Also, there’s usually some very fun themed shows and parties during the month as well. It can be a pretty fun time. However, with all of those things I feel them all to be very heavy handed and disingenuous. How can I accept these things and also seem gracious? I definitely don’t want to be pigeonholed as a catty gay by my non-queer peers.
Dear Queer Concerned,
Token straight here! An ally if you will. I decided to take this question not because I am any sort of expert, but more because like the folks you are concerned about I am one of them.
I will first say that even a little bit of side eye will be appreciated, especially in June! That would be like seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger out in public and getting him to say, “I’ll be back,” or whatever. The straights will eat that shit up. Look, I totally understand your plight. I sympathize, definitely. It all does seem like too much, an over exaggeration of their stances. But at the same time could you imagine if any of these companies did that in 1948? Budweiser or DuPont or General Electric being pro-gay, pro-lesbian? They definitely wouldn’t be appreciating non-binary, trans or any other wonderful person on the spectrum. And now all of these Fortune 500s are coming out of the woodwork in full make up with feather boas and snap their way to Wall St.
I know that Ron DeSantis is the devil. I know that there can be more than one devil. That explains the GOP. The acknowledgment of the LGBTQ+ community and its attack is unreal progress. Russia waged war on Ukraine because it exists. The ghouls and goons are doing the same thing. They see you all, they are acknowledging you all. And acknowledgement is the first step to allyship. If we all start calling them allies it will drive them crazy and lessen the vitriol they spout at you. Yes, it doesn’t reverse the evil laws that have been put in place and the violence experienced on an unfortunately daily basis, but it does put them in a weird position to deny allyship, but to deny allyship would be to say you all aren’t here being regular ass humans.
Ultimately this is a bad advice column, and I use twisted logic to get you to think about your question differently. Happy Pride!
NEWS
Thank you for all the kind words regarding my dad, feeling your love just cemented his legacy.
On June 6th, my brother and I will be throwing out the first pitch in honor of my dad at the Worcester Red Sox for their Lou Gehrig’s day. You all should come out and watch, plus its Taco Tuesday there, which means 3 tacos and a margarita for $12.
As far as shows coming up I just have one on Thursday 5/25 at Back Bay Social. You can find tickets here.
ALSO WOOtenanny has some great shows kicking off June with Ryan O’Flanagan at the White Room and another Hi Jet Comedy at Wooden Bar. Go to our Eventbrite for ticket info!
As always tell your friends to read!