As the month of June -- the official LGBT Pride month -- comes to an end, some people are trying to celebrate a pride day all their own: Heterosexual Pride Day.
#HeterosexualPrideDay started trending on Facebook and Twitter earlier last week with some people calling for fairness and tolerance in celebrating sexuality. Advocates for this hashtag aren't about oppression or equal rights, it's simply a day about being prideful about being straight. It is important to be proud of who you are and to be confident in your sexuality no matter what, but straight people aren't threatened or persecuted over their sexuality. If people want a Heterosexual Pride Day because they feel like it will somehow highlight the need to celebrate heterosexuality, then they are gravely mistaken.
What these advocates of #HeterosexualPrideDay fail to realize is that gay pride was not born out of a need to celebrate being gay, but instead the right to exist without prosecution. This hashtag is making a mockery of a community that has faced real violence and oppression. At the same time, it sends the not-so-subtle message of intolerance that is driven by a sense of ignorant entitlement: "If those gays get a day, then we should, too!"
Of course not everyone thinks that way; some advocates just want to highlight the fact that it’s "good to be normal" – assuming that being straight is the norm. People are really triggered by suggestions that homosexuality isn’t normal, and for good reason! It is important to understand that there is nothing “abnormal” about being a part of a minority group. Until the day we see that there is no more discrimination based on sexuality or gender, Pride days are essential to our underrepresented members of society.
The streets are not filled with children who have been kicked out of their homes for being straight. There is a lack of stories and evidence that show straight people being beat up, tied to a fence, or shot at point-blank range because they were straight. Instead of wondering why there isn't a straight Pride month or movement, maybe straight people should be thankful they don't need one at all.
