Episode 29: Pride Month! Is Pride good for gay people anymore? Corporate interests, targeting lesbians, and epic back-peddling
57 minutes long. Link to audio file. Link directly to this episode.
This episode begins with a focus on what Pride was, the marketing disasters of Bud Light and Target, and why the concept of 'chosen family', recently endorsed by high street chain Primark, is stupid. Why are companies invested in supporting the increase of letters in the LGBTQA+ alphabet soup? We argue there is a corporate interest in promoting the continual extension of LGBTQA+ because it builds a greater market to sell Pride affiliated products to - the more straight people who identify in expands the 'rainbow demographic' of buyers. We also discuss the events of Pride Month, specifically the proposed reforming of the UK Equality Act to insert 'biological' in front of 'sex' so it's harder to conflate sex with gender identity. Jen tells the story of Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle in her kitchen in relation to his contribution in parliament against emboldening these sex-based provisions in law. Finally, we comment on the break slamming u-turn of Melbourne University over the last 4 weeks and the irony of targeting lesbian academic Holly Lawford-Smith during Pride Month.