it blows my mind when I see obviously queer people come into these threads to say that it is fucking terrifying that our very last defense against genocide - tokenizability and monetazability - is evaporating in mere weeks, and then very obviously not queer people come in and say "hey actually the corporations never supported you they were just pretending to drive up their sales"

:what-the-hell:

edit: I'm deeply shocked I need to say this, but us queer communists know that the corporations never supported us and they were just pretending to drive up their sales. I'm making the first statement with the full knowledge that the second is true. The thing I'm complaining about is when people see what can absolutely be interpreted as a nuanced take and instead assume the most bad faith possible bourgeoise-praising.

It is very worrying. One thing that really strikes me is comparing the vastly different reactions to North Carolina's Bathroom Bill of seven years ago, versus the non-existent corporate/centrist response to the recent wave of anti-LGBT hate legislation. In 2016 after North Carolina passed their "Bathroom Bill" (HB2) mandating that people could only use bathrooms in government facilities corresponding to their birth certificate, the backlash was huge.

Eighty corporate CEOs signed a letter urging Governor McCrory to veto HB2. $400 million dollars in planned investments were cancelled by hundreds of companies, who condemned the bill as a gross violation of human rights, costing North Carolina an estimated $3.76 billion over twelve years.

The NBA cancelled the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte. The Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets both openly spoke against the Bathroom Bill as discriminatory. Sanders and Clinton both condemned HB2, and even some Republicans, like Ohio Governor John Kasich, joined them. Plenty of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Maroon 5, Demi Lovato, and Ringo Starr cancelled concerts in solidarity with the North Carolina transgender community. States and cities throughout the U.S. issued travel bans barring government employees from non-essential travel to North Carolina. Police departments throughout North Carolina openly stated that they would refuse to enforce HB2.

By November of 2016 HB2 was so unpopular that it contributed to the electoral defeat of Governor McCrory. In 2017, after the NCAA threatened to ban North Carolina from hosting championships for five years unless they repealed HB2, North Carolina's Republican controlled legislature relented and removed the provisions of HB2 banning trans people from public bathrooms.

Now, seven years later Republican states are signing into law bills far worse than HB2 ever was, but there's nowhere even close to the same backlash for doing so. Not only is transphobic rhetoric getting more and more hateful and dehumanizing, but also that the coalition of people willing to meaningfully defend trans people has gone from a broad consensus, including corporations, celebrities, and centrists, to a far smaller number of activists who can't even make the Democratic Party agree that the lives of Trans people matter. That's whats concerning, even if the Pride of Corporations and the Democratic Party was always hollow and utterly lacking in radicalism, it is still far better then their current acquiescence to deranged chuds.

Hell just a few years ago :melon-musk: was tweeting this now he's encouraging parents to watch Matt Walsh hate speech.

Yeah, I can understand cheering on corpo getting out of pride but it's happening for the worst reason.

lumpenproletariat boycott

I really doubt it's the lumpen doing the boycotting. The lumpen are people without regular employment, if any. Most of the boycotters are prob proletarian or petite-bourgeroies (or pmc).

Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie

The reactionary proles are worse in some ways, but they aren't the ones denying lgbt people healthcare and housing etc. The pro-lgbt borugeoisie are opportunist. If you listen to them they'll tell you that they signal being pro-lgbt because diversity makes them more money. They literally say this. When this is no longer true, they'll change their minds.

Edit: but your larger point about corps signaling less pro-lgbt sentiment is def worrying. Canary in the coal mine :100-com:

The rainbow capitalisms and pride Raytheons are nothing more than the indicator species of the on the ground conditions for grsm in the west, and it really isn't looking good for that ecosystem :cringe:

I fucking hate that they won the culture war.

Epstein Island happens

:wojak-nooo:: "All the billionaires I live vicariously through are PEDOS?!?!?"

:cap-think: "Umm...well...I got it!"

:capitalist-laugh: "At least we aren't GAY!"

:so-true:: "Phew, yeah looks like you guys are alright after all! I almost thought I had to stop and think I might be wrong sometimes!"

Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie. I’m gonna side with whoever respects the rights of trans people to literally exist and if neither are gonna do that then fuck both of them!

Remember even Tesla did opportunistic pride shit. The companies don't give a shit about you or any queer person and they will make their profiles rainbow-colored while paying Republicans to fearmonger at the same time. They don't respect you, if you were on fire they wouldn't even piss on you to put it out unless it meant good PR, because they don't care about any of us, they just care about money and power.

Their performative bullshit is part of what got us in this situation, because they are fixated on signaling while not actually trying to promote change, so it was inevitable that it would make the backlash more vicious because they saturate the media without actually changing minds or protecting rights.

it's ominous but under no circumstances should you side with the "pro-lgbt bourgeoisie"

I think the critical mistake here is assuming that corporations are in some way democratic and are simply listening to consumers. They aren't. If anything I'd just say that the media winds are shifting moreso than actual opinions shifting en masse (the media do froth up a dangerous minority of chuds into a rage causing actual danger tho)

I feel like pride events in sports were just one of those things no one really cared about except for a couple fringe cranks. Now we have players opting out, orgs opting out, and politicians getting involved in canceling sport pride events. The backlash has definitely been cranked up a bunch

It's almost as if when capital attempts to adopt progressive policy without also changing the social order, it abandons it almost immediately in order to pursue the bottom line, because it was never that invested to begin with. They were always going to be tenious, shit allies, because there is nothing materially tying their allegiance to the rights of minorities.

However, the lumpen-proleteriat are all over the place when it comes to this stuff, it's really the hundreds of middle managers and car dealership salesmen who are driving this, guys who have little education but can spend 7,000 a year on beer at the bar.

Edit: Pretending having a rainbow profile pic actually helps LGBT people is some hilarious level of buying into the performative signalling of the bourgeoisie. They aren't on your side. They will never be on your side. They do not share the same interests as you.

Conservatives are good consumers.

So why would they continue to pander to lgbt when you're not opening your wallets

Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie.

hm, actually I don't think that's true, new account using crude marxist language to preach class division along identity lines