Here comes Mala's rant about the importance of nudity in queer visibility again.
(editor's note: it's bordering on becoming a manifesto at this rate lol)
We should have more nudism (or however you want to classify it) at Pride. Maybe even organize some specific WNBR type Pride events registered specifically as political protests so it's explicitly protected speech in jurisdictions outside of Washington/Oregon etc.
I used to be one of those types that was quick to distance Pride from naked people when I was newly out, but frankly if they're even gonna flip out over regular mass market rainbow graphic tees at Target, then might as well start handing out body paint and picket signs reading "Hey, I took off the drag like you asked" or stuff like that.
It was always a double standard freakout anyway. The UK has had full frontal uncensored nudity on national television--in shows where nudity was the whole gimmick--for literally decades. They can't complain just because it's not tailored to a cisheteronormative gaze. Anywhere that has WNBR too. And frankly the freakout about naked people at Pride has been around since back when it was not unusual for PG or PG-13 movies to have live action naked people in them. Even Disney. Fuck even the right wingers feel it's acceptable to unapologetically have naked people in their content.
Being shy or coy or acting like it's not a thing is just emboldening the weird censorious respectability types who simultaneously demand a Sanrio level of whitewashing of Pride and then turn around and fanpost about [insert gore and sex scene filled prestige tv show of the season] nonstop (Of course not even Sanrio is actually squeaky clean enough for them in reality. Aggretsuko, for instance).
"Think of the Children" is just a way to short-circuit logical analysis with emotional thought-stopping cliches, innuendo, and implicit threats against any who disagree with those who declare it. It's the exact same thing they say about gay and trans people so we of all people should know better. Think about it. You don't NEED conversation stoppers like "think of the children" regarding things that actually cause harm. You can reason your way through it and reach the sound conclusion.
A rhetorical cudgel like "think of the children" is only necessary when you're trying to Pizzagate a childcare center or segregate swimming pools or ban gay people from jobs as teachers or make it illegal for trans people to read books to children.
Seeing nudity, like seeing gay and trans people, has not yet harmed a single person in 300,000 years of human existence and it's not going to start now. Fascists just want more excuses to control your bodies. Literally the reason clothing persisted beyond the Upper Pleistocene at all was that it functioned as signifiers of social stratification and control. It's the original Conspicuous Consumption.
Besides. Stop letting them tacitly equate LGBT people with sex by insisting that non-sexual nudity suddenly becomes intrinsically sexual when An Gay Or Tran is involved. Don't just hold the line when they whine that Pride On The Beach has speedos just like the people on the beach had the days before and after. Don't play reactive defense. Push that Overton Window. They invent their excuses for hating us after the fact. Crushing yourself into a little box for them is doing their work for free.
Do not merely not give an inch. Take an inch. Every time. Claim that territory. Seize it with bold action. The way we have won historically is by making them play defense and then showing how the world didn't end in the places they failed. Boston did not sink into the harbor after gay marriage. Colorado didn't implode after banning conversion therapy. Toronto has not flung itself into space after decades of nudity at Pride.
Fuck the GOP.
Fuck the Tories.
Fuck the Alt Right
Fuck the TERFs.
Fuck body image policing.
Fuck forbidden fruit attitudes.
Fuck the cis-het-gaze-for-corporate-profits hegemony.
Put naked queer people in your games.
Put naked queer people in your books.
Put naked queer people in your art.
Put naked queer people in your protests.
Put naked queer people in your community organizing.
Put naked queer people in your mutual aid.
Get over your Millennial Stranger Danger Childhood Hangups (I know, easier said than done, but if even I can do it, so can you) and get out there in nothing but sparkly rainbow war paint.
You must empty yourself of Shame if you wish to embody Pride.
