Why Do So Many LGBTQIA+ People Seem to Take Issue With Pride?

Ask an Ally: Pride Month can be difficult for many, including those whom it is supposed to represent.

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This is a series of posts designed to help people approach diversity and inclusion. These are questions and scenarios we’ve actually heard or seen in the wild. This is part of our corporate programming for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. .

In the course of my lifetime, I have seen huge strides made by the LGBTQIA+ community in terms of both visibility, acceptance and rights. I know things are not perfect (by a long stretch) but what I cannot understand is why so many LGBTQIA+ people seem to take issue with Pride?

I recognize that Pride today is a crucial symbol for many LGBTQIA+ people that indicates we do belong in a society that is largely not accepting of us. In previous generations, such visibility did not exist, which is a positive sign that some attitudes, at least, have changed. But like so many things in U.S. society and around the world, the distance between the rhetoric of Pride and its reality is substantial.

Pride’s rhetoric may be of liberation, but the reality of Pride is both affirming for some and hollow…