Heterosexual Pride Day Delights & Offends: #HeterosexualPrideDay Trends, Fueling Fiery Twitter Responses
#HeterosexualPrideDay is trending on Twitter and everyone has something to say about it!
What is Heterosexual Pride?
According to Metro, the Heterosexual Pride movement began as far back as the 1990s as a real-life response to the growing Gay Pride movement. However, it seems to have been a relatively small movement until last year’s #HeterosexualPrideDay hashtag trend took off.
The Daily News reports that Heterosexual Pride Day became an explosive internet phenomenon on Twitter last year, when #HeterosexualPrideDay trended for the first time. Twitter user @_JackNForTweets credited himself with starting the hashtag and was actually suspended by Twitter, purportedly for doing so.
But this year, @_JackNForTweets, whose account is still suspended, need not be present for Heterosexual Pride to become a huge trend. Proponents of the holiday, many of whom are celebrating with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, think of Heterosexual Pride as the logical answer to LGBT Pride, which has dominated the internet realm and real-life spaces with Twitter hashtags, Facebook Pride Flag emoji reacts, and LGBT Pride parades held throughout the country. The idea, for some, is that LGBT individuals have had their turn to celebrate and now it’s time for straight people to display pride in their own sexual orientation.
Straightness: continuing the human race! #HeterosexualPrideDay pic.twitter.com/rsk33JlWSF
— Eve Keneinan ???? (@EveKeneinan) June 29, 2017
Others feel that Heterosexual Pride Day is an opportunity to expose hypocrisy in the LGBT community regarding acceptance of diversity. This point is especially relevant this year as a Chicago Pride event (the annual Dyke March) removed three Jewish marchers from their parade purportedly because those individuals were carrying rainbow Star of David flags, with the march claiming to be “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Zionist,” according to the Inquisitr. The march organizers were later accused of being anti-Semitic, as their claims of being “inclusive” were summarily called into question.
Critics Of Heterosexual Pride Day
But there are many detractors to #HeterosexualPrideDay who claim that it is the work of homophobic people who are trying to steal the spotlight from the LGBT community. Others simply mock the idea as unnecessary, pointing to the fact that homosexual people, transgender individuals, and other sexual and gender minorities have historically faced hardships and oppression that have made a Pride movement necessary in order for them to reach equality in society. Metro reports that LGBT Pride movements are necessary because homosexuality used to be illegal in Western countries, and is still illegal in other countries around the world. The author further explains, “The reason Heterosexual Pride Day doesn’t need a place is because every day is Heterosexual Pride Day.”
Defenders of Heterosexual Pride Day, however, argue that in modern America, LGBT individuals are not oppressed and are in fact catered to in some ways, such as with President Obama’s creation of the “transgender bathroom law” which directed schools to allow transgender students to use sex-segregated facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity instead of assigned birth sex, according to the Washington Post. Although President Trump revoked that law, the LGBT community has found shelter with Hollywood’s heightened representation of LGBT individuals in movies, including in children’s films like Beauty and the Beast, according to the Daily Mail. In this climate of increased focus on LGBT issues, some straight people feel that their own sexuality is under attack, while detractors to #HeterosexualPrideDay claim that this reaction is nothing more than straight people being angry at losing their “privilege.”
What do you think? Is Heterosexual Pride Day necessary? Or are people spreading the #HeterosexualPrideDay hashtag just trolls?
[Featured Image by Natalia Kabliuk/Shutterstock]
