Serious question here. If being gay is not a choice but a preference you have at birth why do we need pride and parades? I mean it's not like you did anything or chose to be that way, you just kind of are.
As a person who supports equality, no matter race, sex, religion, etc. this has always perplexed me.
I am a man married to a man. I dislike "Pride" events and tacky rainbows, and the language used on my behalf by some of the activist types in my demographic, and I'd be happy to engage you with a sincere defense of "Pride" given those qualifications.
But:
I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821964
When you start talking like that, you've given up pretending that your original question was sincere. You're trying to make a point, not trying to understand. Let's absolutely have these conversations, but please begin them honestly.
A member of my band is gay, and he spent several years during the first years I knew him hiding that fact from the world. Only when I began to really get closer to him did I find out his "secret". He asked me if I cared, and the look in his eyes was that of fear. Fear that I would immediately reject him because of his internal chemistry. But I didn't, and we remain friends and band-mates to this day. He later grew up a bit and came to find out that being gay isn't so bad, in fact there are a lot of things about being gay that are rewarding and awesome. He's much more comfortable in who he is today, and much happier as a result of it. His choice to act upon and embrace his homosexuality, rather than shy away from it, made him an all-around better person.
That's pride.
I say we change the name to "self pride" days/parades and everyone can be happy about themselves and it can be inclusive to every group then.
The Allusionist podcast had a episode about why the word "pride" was intensionally used. Others in this thread have mentioned societal shame that was put on gays. But it was more than that. It was also a deep internal shame and self-hate that many homosexuals felt about themselves.
And remember, this was started in the late 1960's when it was almost unheard of for someone to come out and be open about being gay.
I'm reminded of when people complain about Black History Month and ask, "When's White History Month, eh?" And the answer is that every month is White History Month. Because white people have more or less wiped black people out of popular history. This erasure is just as present for LGBTQ+ people.
It's not.
(If you're American, I don't know how you can live in the US and not have noticed this)
Pride is important to show that people are proud of who they are and are glad they made that choice.
On the subject of the original post, that failure rate graph looks surprisingly high... at least it shows I'm not the only one it didn't work for.
I guess what I'm saying is some things just don't have a logical explanation, but that's what happens when you have all these billions of people in the world.
In my opinion, pride is kind of the wrong word for that. I think what is often called pride is actually the will to (publicly) stand by who they are. With the parades they can express that. Maybe it's a "we know you hate us for being different, but we are many, so it's quite normal to be gay" thing.
I think, though, that they can be proud of themselves when they publicly stand by their sexual orientation in a world full homophobics.