Delete Me

It is Pride Month.  This is usually a time when the LGBTQIA community can celebrate and find strength, visibility and unity. 

Over the years many commercial companies have chosen to align themselves with Pride Month and proclaim themselves as allies.  These companies have been visible on social media and at Pride events.  It has been a way to showcase their commitment to diversity and inclusion.

But times are changing.  There is an increasing backlash.  In some cases, like Target in the US, it has been about customers objecting to the sale of Pride merchandise in the shops.  When Target withdrew certain Pride related items from sale, it led to a lot of hurt in the LGBTQIA community.  Were they willing to stand up and support us?  Or were we just a marketing opportunity to sell rainbow motifed items?  When things got a little bit difficult, how did they react? 

Showing support in good times is easy.  Showing support when people have stopped cheering and it actually costs you something, that is when we get to see the values of our allies.  Or supposed allies.

Disney has scored a spectacular own goal this month too.  No, I am not talking about the battle with the state laws in Florida.  Just on the eve of Pride month, Disney decided to have a purge of its DisneyPlus programming.  This seems to be a cost cutting measure as DisneyPlus seems to be having financial problems.  But despite saying that it was going to remove content, there was no warning about what that content would be.

So, Disney managed to upset a lot of customers but removing the two most popular sapphic shows on their plat form without any warning.  If you want to watch Willow or Motherland Fort Salem, you can’t.  Vanished overnight.  These are two shows where the sapphic content it not just background or secondary characters.  These are series leads having sapphic romance. 

Yet, we have Disney putting out social media posts about how they are supporting Pride with their platform content.  And they are getting a storm of protest about it.  In a number of cases the posts calling Disney out for this are getting much higher support than the original Disney posts.  And there are a long list of subscribers cancelling their subscription. 

Taylor Hickson, who plays the lead character on Motherland Fort Salem, has publicly tweeted that she has cancelled her DisneyPlus subscription.  Her character on the show, is openly lesbian and has a sapphic relationship throughout the three seasons with bisexual Scylla Ramshorn. 

Here in the UK, you can walk through any town centre at the moment and see rainbow flags in shops.  You can buy a wide variety of rainbow themed stuff in those shops as they seek to turn their commitment into profit.  But things will only change when we demand more of those companies who want to use our hard won goodwill and our hard earned money.  What are they actually doing for us?  We know what they get out of it, but what do we get out of it now?

It is time that organisers of events started to ask harder questions of those who want to sponsor events and advertise in our magazines and such.  Are these really the brands who are our allies, or just fair weather friends? 

As a community, we have more power now than we have ever had.  We also have many vulnerable people who need our support.  So, we need to tell those who want to be our allies that we want better.  Until they are prepared to be visible and supportive all year round, then they won’t get out support and kudos.  They won’t be getting my money either.