Pride and Prejudice

It’s June, and that makes it Pride Month.

The most visible aspect of Pride are the marches, the celebrations, the rainbows, the silly spectacles. These often elicit eye-rolls and head-shakes. But they’re important symbols of a simple idea: the idea of living visibly, without fear. They’re visible aspects because Pride is about visibility. Visibility promotes familiarity, and familiarity is the best inoculation against hate and fear. That’s why Pride is not a party, and Pride is not a joke. It’s the ability for all of us to be part of public life. To not be threatened by thugs on the street. To not be denied access to employment, shelter or dignity.

Without Pride - without visibility - there’s lack of awareness. However innocent, this lack of awareness leads to ignorance, ignorance then leads to fear, fear to distancing, distancing to othering, and othering to dehumanising. From there it’s very easy for malevolent leaders to victimise us, scapegoat us, menace us. Segregate us, remove us from society, annihilate us. Of course that sounds hysterical, we’re not in 1940s Europe. But the playbook is still lying around in 2025, just waiting to be picked up.

There’s a reason I haven’t specifically mentioned the LGBTQ+ communities in this post. Because there’s somewhere in the world where YOU are the minority. Maybe you’re there right now. Maybe you have to imagine it. Or maybe you experience life as a minority, yet you still victimise others lower down the pecking order. Our leaders can only scapegoat enemies - of whatever identity or persuasion - if we let them. So please don’t be blind to what Pride means for us all in 2025.


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