we’re on our own this pride month, queers.
we’re on our own this pride month, queers.
Corporations and community groups are backing away from LGBTQ+ advocacy at the time we need it most.
Queering the Burbs is a regularly-published distillation of pop culture, politics and queerness written by Joe Erbentraut. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing (it’s free!), liking or sharing this piece.
This Pride Month feels different, at least from where I sit. And not for the reasons you might be thinking someone like me would say that this year.
If you’re the sort of person who’s reading this, you probably are already aware of the glut of anti-LGBTQ+ (and specifically anti-trans and anti-trans by way of anti-drag) legislation that has been introduced and enacted by state legislatures throughout the country this year. These bills and laws are heinous and will come with a very real human cost that we won’t be able to accurately total for years to come, if ever. But no, I’m not talking about that right now.
I remember when my now-spouse and I first moved to this suburb seven years ago now. We arrived in town in 2016, just two short months before this nation elected a fascist president. At the time we came, we rarely if ever saw pride flags around town, not even during the month of June. We didn’t know many other out queer folks in town. Frankly, the community—though we now understand it was very much already here—was mostly invisible from public life in this western suburban town.
As the years have passed, I noticed a steady increase in visibility each year reaching something of a fever pitch in recent years as dozens of downtown businesses would decorate their windows with elaborate displays celebrating Pride Month and the number of pride flags displayed on homes around town proliferated like dandelions in the spring. Driving down Wilson Street last June, the amount of visible support for the LGBTQ+ community was almost overwhelming. Accompanied with actions like the city flying a pride flag outside City Hall for the first time a few years back and a stark increase in the number of LGBTQ+ oriented community events taking place here, it felt like we had maybe turned a corner where not only my newly adopted hometown would be one where queer people were actively accepted, but that Batavia could be an example of what that acceptance looks like in towns of this size.
But this year has felt different in these parts. As I write this, it is Friday, June 2, so maybe it’s a bit early in Pride Month to issue this proclamation. But the public pride displays of recent years seem to be markedly toned down this year, if they’re present at all. It feels like a step backward.
Of course, our community will always have its staunch allies. Batavia businesses like Sidecar Supper Club, Beardsgaard Barbers, Limestone Coffee, the Wilson Street Mercantile, and Paula’s Couture Consignment are visibly repping the community right now, and many of them do year round. Daddio’s Diner is serving up some truly decadent-looking Pride pancakes, and the Congregational Church of Batavia is also decked out for Pride. The city has also, again, flown its pride flag outside of City Hall this year, an action that of course riled up opinions from some of the densest people you’ll ever meet on Facebook.
But beyond that, it’s feeling pretty quiet out there. Some downtown businesses that previously displayed pride-related imagery and messaging this year have noticeably bare windows this time around. The downtown nonprofit organization responsible for promoting downtown business activity has, as of this writing, yet to acknowledge Pride Month in its social media presence despite doing so every other year in recent memory. (UPDATE 6/5/23: Credit where it is due: the org mentioned above shared a Facebook post this morning highlighting various Pride displays and events around town along with a message of support.)
So what’s different this time? If I had to guess, some local businesses and leaders saw what has happened to large corporations like Bud Light, Target, and now even Kohl’s (I’m not kidding!) that have come under fire by right-wing commentators and their faithful followers for their pro-LGBTQ+ marketing and products this year. They may have been spooked by these individuals’ ludicrous and baseless accusations that LGBTQ+ people and their advocates are “grooming” children with our messages of acceptance and equality. They are probably afraid of facing their own pushback by the people hurling those very same accusations on our town’s official Facebook page right now.
This is happening nationally too. Creator Fran Tirado just addressed this in a new Instagram reel titled “why corporations are skipping pride this year.” Put simply, queer and trans artists and creatives are not being booked anywhere near as much as they have in years past, and this has real economic repercussions for their lives. As an occasional DJ who also lost a local Pride Month gig this year that I had the previous two years, I’ve seen it too.
This sort of fairweather allyship is really not helpful for us queer folks. We are under attack right now by a growing base of hateful fascists who, frankly, do not want us to live or, at the very least, do not want us to exist in public life. This is not hyperbole, as Republican lawmakers have repeatedly essentially said as much. We need our allies to turn the volume up this year, not down. We need people to know that they are with us, and not against us, more than ever.
We as a community are survivors, though. Regardless of whatever level of public support we have at any given time—as active, genuine allyship falls in and out of fashion—we will continue to gather, to support each other, and to celebrate our uncrushable creativity and spirit. We will protest and dance, we will vote and march no matter what. We are growing in number and growing in strength and the fascists fucking hate that, so we just have to keep going.
This Pride Month, just as we have every other Pride Month, all of us queer, trans, enby hotties and everyone else in the so-called Rainbow Mafia will channel strength and we will persevere because we don’t know any other way. Our strength is derived directly from our queerness, and our queerness has saved our lives, and will do it again. The hate just makes us stronger.
If you’re a queer person reading this, I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself this Pride Month. This shit is exhausting and constantly operating in survival mode is no way to live. Spend time with your people, stay hydrated, get a nice snack, or listen to your favorite song. We got this, and I love you.
And if you’re an ally reading this, I beg of you: Please don’t ignore or downplay what queer and trans people are saying right now. We are afraid, and we need you. If you want to help us, please support the work of local, grassroots artists, business owners and activists where you live. In the Fox Valley area, I’m talking about folks like the unstoppable Annie Hex and the wonderful folks are Belong: Fox Valley (who hosted a fabulous Youth Queer Prom this spring, have planned a stacked lineup of programming all month long, and just got their 501(c)3 if you’re looking for that juicy, juicy tax deduction).
But above all, allies, anywhere you see hate rearing its head, please stand up for us. I repeat again, we need you.
I’d been planning to reignite the Queering the Burbs flame for some time but life kept getting in the way. But I’d like to personally thank a couple of folks—especially Dan and Katie—who encouraged me in recent days to pick up the pen again. Going forward, I’m hoping to deliver monthly or possibly biweekly dispatches highlighting stories of progress and setbacks for queer communities here in the western suburbs. Stay tuned.
Though I usually end each of these posts with a song selection, I thought I’d hand over the space where that would normally appear to the spectacular Pride Jams Spotify playlist from the team at Aurora’s Hoof & Horn (and you can read more about their shop here).