i type the way i think and my train of thought has run off the rails and plowed into the station and caught fire so you’ll have to forgive me if i eschew niceties like “paragraphs” and “commas” and “periods”
cops arent at pride to protect us, theyre there as an intimidation tactic so pride wont become a riot again
Well then… Good?
It shouldn’t be a riot. “Oh no the cops are preventing this parade from becoming a riot.”
That’s their job, idiot.
Fun fact: before stonewall (and before the first pride parade that we would see any similarity with today’s pride), there were quiet polite marches where queer people said nothing, wore their best business clothes, and held signs, with the specific intent of trying to say to the straights “see, we’re just like you! we’re also normal and boring! that means we’re in no way a threat! will you stop murdering us now? please?”
People got fired for walking in these quiet, orderly, sunday-best marches. People were attacked at home, attacked in public, people were murdered for it. “A queer person stood next to me and it was so upsetting that I panicked and murdered them to death” was a legitimate defense that actually worked and blamed gay people FOR BEING MURDERED (this still happens btw, just not quite as often, and the charges usually go down to involuntary manslaughter instead of go away entirely… most of the time. some people still get off scott free with the gay panic defence). And no one saw anything wrong with that, people considered a gay person simply existing and doing no harm to anyone to be a crime punishable by death.
Imagine if someone walked up to you and shot you in the face and got away with it scott free because they didn’t like your freckles? Imagine if you could be murdered for wearing glasses. Imagine if the only thing anyone needed to say to a judge to 100% get away with murdering you was “They had ears! I’m terrified of ears! I mean, I could sort of tolerate them having fingernails but ears?! I’M GOING TO BE SCARRED FOR LIFE BECAUSE I WAS FORCED TO SEE THEIR EARS!! WAAAAAAAAAAA!”
That’s what the world was like for queer people. In a lot of places this is what it’s STILL like. This shit still happens every fucking day.
So since the quiet sunday-best marches added no more protection than a literal riot where queers had to barricade themselves in a bar and try to fight off the cops who were only there to arrest and kill them for the crime of existing. We kinda decided that we should just be as loud as humanly possible because if we’re going to get killed anyway, we should at least have fun doing it.
I’m telling you elephants are chill motherfuckers. They fucking love being helpful. They once defended a man with heatstroke from a truck that came to rescue him. They knew he was sick, laying against a tree for shade. They were watching over him and petting him, and they threatened to charge the vehicle for coming towards him. Another person passed out, and elephants cried over her and buried her body in a traditional elephant funeral. (Piling branches on her). And were quite spooked when she got up later.
And an elephant was helping workers to put logs in holes for a wall. On one hole, the elephant absolutely refused to set the log in, despite being punished and goaded. Turns out there was a sleeping dog in the hole.
There are so many good elephants stories. They will even help zookeepers wash other elephants– literally, a zookeeper can be like “[Name 1], please wash [Name 2]” and he will go wash that elephant correctly.
Listen guys. Not only are elephants people, but they’re largely better people than us. I’m 10000% serious.
I just love that the lioness (a fiercely protective species) was 100% on board with it.
“Thanks, Janet, it’s been one hell of a week, you know?”
Srsly thats just a regular hunk. Bear is an important term cos there really wasn’t any word for “handsome heavyset man” before the LGBT community came along and opened our eyes to the truth. Calling skinny buff dudes bears is like all those douchebros who are like “i want a thicc gorl” *points to stick thin woman who just has big booby*
THANK you. And originally it DID just mean fat hairy men exclusively, it was only later that ‘musclebears’ became a thing. But Bear was a reaction to the gay male culture’s obsession with what we now call a twink (which is, to whit: a thin, hairless, youthful man between 18-25), as well as a reaction to the idea that gay men had to be femme in order to be gay, as well as offering body positivity to gay men who were fat, which is an important distinction–Bear Pride is a gay male fat positivity movement/identity, that’s real important and we gotta not forget that, because that support and representation and pride is a protest against the part of gay culture that toxically commodifies male bodies and demands thinness and hairlessness. /soapbox
