I am just going to come out and say it… I am pretty concerned that the rainbow has lost its significance as a symbol for Pride – any rainbow based Pride event/march etc will just look like a celebration of the NHS (who thoroughly deserve to be praised, AND paid properly etc btw) but I can’t help feel like a fun ‘spot the rainbow’ for kids was suddenly appropriated for a cause that has its own symbol already (NHS logo – why didn’t we fly blue & white flags etc???) with a deliberate agenda to remove it as a symbol of the LGBTQ community. I will be promoting the varied, and more specific, spectrum of Pride flags* throughout June as a way to ensure that Pride month isn’t swallowed by a Tory instigated propaganda farce…

Don’t believe it is propaganda to encourage us to clap…? OK, so you’re OK with the proposed public sector pay freeze, then? Because that will effectively mean a pay cut for those you are lauding as heroes…https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-latest-treasury-rishi-sunak-deficit-tax-pay-freeze-pension-triple-lock-a9511336.html?fbclid=IwAR2x9-v-x0Gp1Dtq6cSJR5v-LF1VvPRd_Rukrq5CM2Z1-W1PhKvBf-rou4I This isn’t about whether you care of not, it’s very much about how you show you care – rounds of applause don’t provide PPE or ventilators or fill gaps in essential frontline staffing of the NHS…banging on pots doesn’t put food on the table of the nurse or the paramedic, nor buy shoes for their children, or cover their mortgage payments…This is not a war, we’re not in the Blitz, and we are not ‘all in this together’ – we are being fooled into thinking that community camaraderie will be the determining factor and yet we are also being encouraged to turn against our neighbours, our friends and family, ordinary people – pointing fingers at anyone we judge to be acting against the common good…And that was always at the heart of conservatism and its persecution of the LGBTQ+ community…that we weren’t upholding traditional family values, that we undermine the very fabric of society…the obedient wife, dutifully producing offspring to ensure the next generation of workers and consumers…

Don’t believe it might be deliberate, somehow orchestrated by those with conservative, traditionalist views…the UK LGBTQ+ friendly rating has plummeted….https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/05/14/rainbow-map-2020-lgbt-rights-equality-europe-uk-ilga/?fbclid=IwAR3c4IymiwPYH8-K5ECf8Uzr-1kzZIsYWvzZyksgDpJHNYmUSxfmCIsic5c

So, I will be keeping my rainbows AND flying the lesbian flag too…all of them – for the lipsticks and the bluesy stone butches, for the femmes and the futches…

*FIND YOUR FLAG AND FLY IT BRIGHT!