If Your Pride Isn’t Intersectional Don’t You Dare Post That Rainbow

Every June, the rainbows come out. Corporate logos suddenly become colorful, influencers post photos from Pride events, brands launch limited-edition collections, people share graphics about love, acceptance, and equality … and look, that's great, truly, visibility matters, representation matters, all that good stuff.

… but if your support for the LGBTQIA+ community starts and ends with a rainbow-colored Instagram post, we've got a problem, like, a huge problem, because being an ally isn't a seasonal aesthetic, it's not a marketing strategy, and it certainly isn't something you can pick and choose.

The truth is, Pride was never meant to be comfortable, it was never meant to be a cute branding exercise or an excuse to sell rainbow merchandise. Pride was born out of protest. It was built by people who were marginalized not just because of their sexuality or gender identity, but often because of their race, class, disability status, immigration status, and countless other identities that shaped their experiences.

That's where intersectionality comes in, because if your Pride isn't intersectional, then, you might want to keep that rainbow in the drafts, actually, go ahead and delete it, because it’s not meaningful coming from you.

What Even Is Intersectionality?

Let's start with the basics; Intersectionality is the understanding that people experience discrimination and privilege in different ways depending on how multiple aspects of their identity overlap. The term was coined by legal scholar and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how systems of oppression intersect and affect people differently.

A white gay man and a Black transgender woman are both members of the LGBTQIA+ community … but their experiences are not the same.

A wealthy lesbian executive and a disabled queer person living below the poverty line are both queer, but the barriers they face aren't identical.

Intersectionality asks us to recognize that people aren't just one thing. Nobody walks through life carrying only a single identity, and when we ignore those overlapping experiences, we end up creating movements that only serve the most privileged members of the community. That's not equality … like, at all. That's exclusion with better branding.

The Rainbow Includes Everyone (EVERYONE Everyone)

Some people seem to forget this; the rainbow flag isn't a membership card for whichever queer people you personally find acceptable.

It includes everybody: Gay people, lesbians, bisexual people, pansexual people, asexual people, transgender people, nonbinary people, gender nonconforming people, intersex people, queer people, people who are questioning, people who don't fit neatly into labels. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody.

You don't get to decide that one group deserves rights while another group is "too much,” because that's not allyship. That's discrimination wearing a rainbow hat and yelling “YAAAAAAASSSS” at brunch.

You Can't Be An Ally If You're Transphobic

This should not be controversial, yet somehow, here we are. One of the biggest problems facing the LGBTQIA+ community today is the rise of people who claim to support queer rights while openly attacking transgender people.

You'll hear things like: "I support gay people, but..." the second there's a "but," we're already in trouble.

Trans people have always existed, trans people have always been part of this movement.

Many of the people who fought for LGBTQIA+ rights throughout history were trans people and gender nonconforming people. You cannot separate transgender rights from LGBTQIA+ rights. You cannot throw trans people under the bus and then call yourself an ally. That's not how this works. The community rises together or not at all.

Fuck a TERF, all my homies hate TERFs.

Misogyny Has No Place Here Either

Let's have another uncomfortable conversation; misogyny is alive and well, including within queer spaces.

Women are often expected to support everyone else while receiving less support themselves. Lesbians are fetishized, bisexual women are dismissed, trans women face extraordinary levels of harassment and violence, and somehow people still want to act like sexism isn't part of the conversation.

It absolutely is.

If your version of Pride celebrates queer men while dismissing, mocking, or objectifying women, you've missed the point entirely.

Racism Doesn't Magically Disappear at Pride

A lot of people love quoting the history of Pride while conveniently ignoring the people who helped build that history. Pride did not become what it is today solely because of white cisgender activists. The movement owes an enormous debt to queer people of color who fought, organized, protested, and advocated when doing so was far more dangerous than posting a rainbow graphic online.

Yet racism continues to show up in queer spaces. It appears in dating preferences disguised as "just a preference,” it appears in beauty standards, it appears in who gets represented in media, it appears in whose stories get amplified and whose stories get ignored, if you're serious about allyship, racism has to be part of the conversation.

Whether it's comfortable or not, and the cool thing about that is; the more educated and open-minded you become, the less uncomfortable all of this is. If conversations about oppression, including racism, are making you uncomfortable, that means there’s something within you that requires some education. So lean in, listen, and get better, I promise, you’ll love it in the long run.

Classism Matters Too

A lot of Pride celebrations have become expensive, between tickets, travel, hotels, special events, VIP experiences, brand activations, luxury merchandise, and while none of those things are inherently bad, they can create barriers.

Not everybody can afford a $400 festival ticket, not everybody can take time off work, not everybody lives in a city with extensive LGBTQIA+ resources, and that’s FINE, and not necessarily the fault of anybody, but when we’re operating in a way that isn’t truly accessible or inclusive, we need to be doing better.

Queer liberation isn't just about visibility, it's also about accessibility. If Pride becomes something only wealthy people can comfortably participate in, we're leaving people behind yet again.

Let's Talk About Rainbow Capitalism

The annual corporate migration. Every June, companies discover queer people exist and suddenly, there are rainbow products everywhere. Here's the thing, some companies genuinely support LGBTQIA+ communities year-round, others don't, like, really don’t.

If a company is profiting off Pride while donating to politicians who actively work against LGBTQIA+ rights, that's a problem, if a company sells rainbow merchandise while failing to protect queer employees, that's a problem, if a company only acknowledges queer people when there's money to be made, that's a problem. Being an ally isn't a seasonal marketing campaign, and consumers are getting increasingly good at spotting performative support.

You Can't Vote Against Queer Rights and Call Yourself An Ally

This is another conversation people love avoiding; support is not just words. It's actions, it's policies, it's voting decisions, it's who you support either loudly or silently when actual rights are being debated and challenged.

You can't publicly celebrate Pride while supporting policies that actively harm LGBTQIA+ people. You can't claim to support equality while voting against equal protections. You can't say "love is love" and then back legislation that makes life harder for queer people.

At some point, actions matter more than slogans, actually, they matter a lot more.

Pride Was Never About Perfection

Being intersectional doesn't mean being perfect, nobody is. We all have biases (often things ingrained in us during childhood from our immediate environment and society at large,) we all have things we need to learn, we all make mistakes. The goal isn't perfection; the goal is growth, listening, learning, being willing to challenge your own assumptions, being willing to stand up when it matters, being willing to support people even when doing so isn't popular or convenient.

That's true allyship, not perfection.

The Rainbow Means All Of Us

At its core, Pride is about community. Not just the members of the LGBTQIA+ community you personally understand, not just the people who look like you, not just the people whose experiences are easiest for society to accept; all of us.

The rainbow doesn't have an asterisk attached to it, because it doesn't come with exclusions, exceptions, etc. The moment we start deciding who deserves dignity and who doesn't, we've abandoned the entire purpose of the movement.

Love is love. Human rights are human rights. Discrimination has no place under a rainbow flag.

So this Pride Month, and every month after it, ask yourself a simple question: is your support conditional? Or are you actually standing with the entire community?

If your Pride isn't intersectional, if you're picking favorites, if you're making exceptions, if you're only supportive when it's convenient ... I’m begging you to not post that rainbow, at least not until you're ready to stand for what it actually represents.