June is Pride Month.
The Pride we are supposed to celebrate is not American Pride or Pride In Work or Pride In Accomplishment.
You know the Pride I am talking about it.
It has become so ingrained in our society that every major league baseball team except for one (the Texas Rangers) is going to have a Pride Night this season.
My hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds, gave away an exclusive Reds Pride cross body bag (I kid you not) on Pride Night a few nights ago.
You will see numerous other professional franchises and other businesses also lining up with other "Pride" promotions this month.
It has become impossible to get away from the political posturing on the LGBTQ+ issue whether it is sports or anything else in our popular culture today.
I am not so sure that this attempt by KLM Airlines to show inclusivity worked out so well in making the point they wanted to.
Pride Month is only a small part of this as I pointed out in a blog post from two years ago.
There are plenty of other opportunities to recognize the LGBTQ+ community throughout the year.
The calendar has gotten awfully crowded with LGBTQ+ visibility, awareness and pride days, weeks and months.
One person did a calculation on X that determined that there are 145 calendar days in the year devoted to celebrating LGBTQ+ in some way.
Has all of this gotten a little out of hand?
A few examples.
February 19-25---Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week
Month of March---Bisexual Health Awareness Month
March 1---Zero Discrimination Day
April 12---Day of Silence
April 13---International Day of Pink (Opposing Homophobia)
April 26---Lesbian Visibility Day
May 16---Honor Our LGBT Elders Day
May 19--International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia
May 19---Agender Pride Day
May 22---Harvey Milk Day
Maty 24---Pansexual and Panromantic Awareness and Visibility Day
Month of June---Pride Month
June 28---Stonewall Riots Day
June 28---Gay Pride Day
July 6---Omnisexual Visibility Day
July 11-17---Bisexual Awareness Week
July 14---International Non-Binary Day
July 16---International Drag Day
August 14---Gay Uncles Day
September 15-21---Bisexual Awareness Week
September 23---Bisexual Visibility Day
Month of October---LBGT History Month
October 11---National Coming Out Day
October 17-24---Genderfluid Visibility Week
October 19---Spirit Day ((Support for LGBTQ+ Youth)
October 20---International Pronoun Day
October 20-26---Asexual Awareness Week
October 26---Asexual Awareness Day
Month of November---Trans Awareness Month
November 6---Trans Parent Day
November 8---Intersex Solidarity Day
November 13-19---Trans Awareness Week
November 20---Trans Day of Awareness
December 1---International AIDS Day
December 8---Pansexual Pride Day
A Gay Uncles Day? I am an uncle. Is there no day for heterosexual uncles like me?
A Trans Parent Day? Why isn't Mother's Day or Father's Day sufficient?
Honor Our LGBT Elders Day? What happened to just honoring all elders?
How have we gotten to this point?
A recent Gallup survey indicated that 9% of the U.S. adult population identifies as LGBTQ+.
However, almost 60% of that total is bisexual.
Lesbian and gays make up only 3% of the population. Transgender another 1%.
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| Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx |
It is also important to understand that these numbers are overwhelmingly skewed by responses from those between the ages of 18-29.
23% of those in the 18-29 age cohort identified as LGBTQ+ in the survey.
Of that number, females outnumber men by almost a 3:1 margin (31.4% of 18-29 age females identify as LGBTQ vs. 11.4% of men.).
It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of women in that number also identify as Bisexual rather than lesbian, queer or trans.
By contrast, only 2.3% of those age 65+ identify as LGBTQ+ in any form.
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| Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx |
Did something in basic biology change over the years or is this an indication that media, entertainment. cultural and peer influences have been primarily responsible for this change?
However, there are hints that the trends that have driven LGBTQ identification among young people are fading.
CDC data from its Behavioral Risk Surveillance System shows a sharp decline in those identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual over the last couple of years after surging in the previous decade.
Note that there has been almost no change at all for those in the age 45+ age group over the entire period.
It has consistently hovered in the 2%-3% range.
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| Credit: https://www.generationtechblog.com/p/non-heterosexual-identity-is-in-free |
Support for LGBTQ+ issues from the voting public has also started to fade in the last couple of years according to another Gallup survey that was just released this week.
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| Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/gallup-poll-finds-americans-support-lgbtq-issues-sliding-backward-amid-cultural-shift |
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| Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx |
This has been driven principally by a shift in views about the morality of gay and lesbian relationships and transgenderism among Republicans in particular but is also seen with Independents as well.
56% of Republicans said that homosexuality was morally acceptable in 2022.
That numbers has fallen to 35% today.
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| Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx |
22% of Republicans said it was morally acceptable to change one's gender in 2021.
It is now just 5%.
However, even among Democrats, support for changing one's gender as being morally acceptable has dropped from 67% in 2021 to 60% today.
What do I see as behind these changing attitudes, particularly with Republicans and Independents?
The LGBTQ+ activists have overplayed the Pride mantra.
We were told that "love is love" and that gays deserved respect and the opportunity to marry like everyone else.
If they had that, everything would be fine.
However, all that did was embolden the LBGTQ activists to do more to indoctrinate children and attempt to normalize more of these behaviors.
In addition, transgenderism was pushed on us to the extent that no one could even define what a woman is, we needed to surgically change the gender of children and biological men had to be allowed to play women's sports.
All of it was then put under the PRIDE umbrella and pushed at everyone and in everything including attending a simple baseball game.
All of it reminds me of this simple Bible verse.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 KJV
Has the fall begun?
Former corporate officer Scott raises real polling data worth taking seriously (way to go Scott): public support for LGBTQ+ issues has shifted, and that's worth understanding. But his causal story doesn't hold up.
ReplyDeleteThe same period that saw declining "moral acceptability" numbers also saw an unprecedented surge in explicit anti-LGBTQ+ political messaging ,hundreds of state-level bills targeting trans youth, primary incentives for Republicans to take harder culture-war positions, and a media ecosystem that made these issues a wedge priority. Scott argues that visibility caused the backlash. It's equally plausible, and maybe more so, that the political backlash caused the visibility.
His generational data is also worth a second look. If Pride Month and a Reds crossbody bag were truly driving mass social contagion among young people, you'd expect identification numbers to keep climbing. The fact that they appear to be plateauing suggests something more complicated than a culture gone off the rails.
And the calendar argument cuts both ways. The U.S. calendar is dense with observances such as religious, military, ethnic, commercial. Singling out LGBTQ+ awareness days as uniquely excessive requires a standard Scott doesn't apply to anyone else.
The Proverbs verse is evocative. But the same tradition has a great deal to say about how communities treat their most vulnerable members. That part didn't make the post.