It’s PRIDE Month! YAAAAY! Well, I think it is. There are more Pride Months than there are months. It depends on where you live, who wants your money and who is currently displaying how inclusive they are. That is, if Pride is still allowed: I know that it’s mean to be just gay or lesbian these days, you have to be more than just LG or B in the Alphabet Movement to enjoy any grace. Pride, of course, despite what you may have heard, was when a couple of American drag queens (yes, just that) kicked the crap out of New York’s finest because they were sick of being picked on. It may seem quaint in this world, where hypersensitivity passes for virtue – but there was a time when simply being gay or lesbian got you victimized – in the actual sense of the word. But why be nostalgic? There are plenty of places that still love hurting, killing, herding, pressing down on, the gays. Not that I want to diminish microaggressions experienced by humanities undergrads at Ivy League schools, but Chechnya have us in actual concentration camps. The UN Human Rights body – filled as it is with tyrants, fundamentalists and Marxist dictatorships – doesn’t particularly care. But Chechnya is hardly where the trouble ends. Throughout Africa (with progressive constitutions being no barrier to good old fashioned gay hate), the Islamic world, Russia, the People’s Republic of China – being gay may mean you end up hurt, rejected, ridiculed or dead. State actors sometimes, non-state actors at other times (it makes no difference when you’re the one doing the dying, does it? Not really).

Yup. Pride – more like a kind of mobile international Spring Day – in which the ultra-victimized get to resent the merely formerly victimized – is now an excuse for a party.

Because, really, once you enjoy your own rights – you can forget about the real people in the real world outside of your borders still being mistreated like few minorities these days.

The right can ignore it, like they always have, and the left can dismiss it, as they seem to like to do these days.

After all… it’s all about ensuring no one gets triggered on their safe space. And making sure that JK can’t voice her opinion without hysterical crowds pretending she’s instigating genocide.

I remember the day that Pride lost its shine for me. I used to go, religiously. Once a year. Not to protest, or even to make a statement. But to form part of a large crowd – because that experience is novel, living alone and isolated.

Some extremists held up the walk by lying in the road, to ‘bring attention’ to their cause. They also accused everyone attending of being elitist, misogynist and racist.

My reaction was like most people’s – except I’m willing to voice it. Screw you then. I withdraw support, and shut out your utterances henceforth.

There’s still a need for Lib. But it’s not happening on the political left. Nor is it happening in the genteel cities of the liberated world.

That’s just a party.

It’s okay to go – I’ll go to my local one later this year. Until I’m accused of being some sort of bigot for daring to remember a day that was supposed to be about people just like me – regardless of race, gender or kink – I’ll support the show of numbers.

But the professional victims spoiling everyone’s fun with their relentless pity parties… well, they ain’t no friends of mine.