What is the purpose of gay pride parades? If the purpose is clear, is it productive or counterproductive?

Question

I am pretty unsure about gay pride parades. What is the essential goal? With suffragettes they had definite requests on voting rights.

Personally I have no problem with homosexuals, I am pretty indifferent towards them. I just don't really get the concept of the gay pride parades. Is it supposed to make intolerant people more tolerant?

Also my opinion is: tolerant people will enjoy them, intolerant people get more furious. In this sense it seems counterproductive. On Wikipedia, I can read about historical background, opposition, etc... but the purpose or goals remain unknown.

So my questions are:
What are the purposes of the gay pride parades?
And if it is defined, what are they trying to produce?

Answer 1

There are several purposes.

• One is the feeling of unity and strength. It's well known that being "different" (including homosexual in a society that frowns on it) sometimes makes a person feel very depressed because they assume they are "the only one like it". As such, a mass public gathering to show that there's plenty of people sharing your "differentness" serves a purpose of showing to all those who are alike that they aren't alone.

  This doesn't JUST work for homosexuals. it works for ANY political movement (that's what demonstrations serve, in part), or even niche interest conventions.

• Another goal is as a subtle (or not) "eff you" to society that is viewed as homophobic.

  I fully agree that it's counterproductive at best if your goal is to make homosexuality more accepted, but people aren't always rational. That's why San Fran gay parades turn into a "let's dress as provocatively and sexually as possible" carnivals.

• Another one is a show of strength to the society. "You may think you can mess with that one gay kid in your large group because he's alone. But he's NOT alone. There's tons of us".

• Similar one is show of POLITICAL strength. "We are a large and ACTIVE and ENGAGED demographics, so take us seriously as a voting block".

• Another one is publicity/branding. As they say in Hollywood, "there's no bad or good publicity. There's only publicity or lack of it".

Answer 2

In an objective and detached way, gay pride assumes or presupposes a society at large in which gay lesbian bisexual and transgender people are devalued, ostracized, and marginalized on the basis of their sexual or gender identity.

The purpose is ostensibly to celebrate their identity in the face of a society which would rather shame them than recognize them as human beings.

The purpose is also normalizing. Gay Pride parades make gay lesbian bisexual and transgender people visible and more widely recognized. Consequently, it becomes a little more possible for GLBT people to exist in the world openly.

There are also business purposes, and therefore gay pride prides throughout the county (US) have many corporate sponsors, advertisers, etc, which seek to profit.

Answer 3

This is my opinion as individual Gay people are basically bullied all year long, facing attacks etc. For ONCE in a year you can be who you are in public and celebrate.

Consider that they cannot hold hands in public by fear of being attack, maybe it would help you to understand why pride is important.

Answer 4

To expand more on the publicity point in user4012's post:

A major point of Pride, and further, being publicly out, is to show other LGBT people that they are not alone and to encourage others to come out of the closet. LGBT people, like all other people, have unique challenges. In their case, one of them is people not acknowledging that they even exist, which is why publicity is so important. This is frequently why LGBT people care that characters on a TV show are LGBT, i.e. 'Representation Matters."

So pride parades and festivals are ways of calling attention to LGBT people's existence, as if they don't acknowledge you exist, you can't get any rights or tolerance.

Answer 5

Consider that when gay pride events started it wasn't all that long after homosexuality was legalized in many countries. The legacy of it being illegal and many people being disgusted by, or hostile towards gay people resulted in a lot of discrimination and bad treatment, even attacks.

So when they started gay pride marches were an attempt to alter the public perception of homosexuality, normalizing it and reducing fear/distrust by familiarizing people with it.

More recently they have become popular annual events, as well as continuing to push for rights and acceptance for LGBTQ people.

Answer 6

I've asked a Pride parade activist this very same question and this was his response, summarized.

Here in Canada people of all sexual orientations have the same rights and society generally doesn't care anymore if someone is homosexual or not. It's literally no more of an issue than someone being a dog or a cat person - either way is fully accepted. However:

1. Issues surrounding transgender people are still highly controversial and society still doesn't fully accept one's right to change their gender.
2. Homosexuality might be a non-issue in Canada, but it is a big deal in other countries. Showing oppressed minorities in other regions that they have a large community of supporters around the world can encourage them to stay strong.
3. At the end of the day parades are fun, regardless of what the topic is. Pride parades are fully open to heterosexual folks as well, so it's a good opportunity for all citizens to enjoy a day of celebration.