pride month – The Dicktionary

June is Pride Month! Happy Pride, everyone!!

Sorry we’re a bit late to the party! I’ve been dealing with some non-work stress but that’s all past and it’s time to celebrate Pride! This month snuck up on me as here in Austin we celebrate pride in August (unsurprising considering how hot it is here in June). Here at Strange Bedfellas we are both members of the LGBT+ community and are very excited to celebrate this month! We know a lot of our friends and customers are members of the community as well and it’s awesome to get to show some support!

We’ve got a whole lot of toys ready to drop into inventory tomorrow (June 8th) and a good lot of them are rainbows! Shimmer rainbows! Pastel rainbows! Glow-in-the-dark rainbows! Definitely something for everyone! Stop by the store around 4 PM central time to get your hands on these colorful selections!

But we’re not just here to toss rainbow friends at you. In honor of Pride month, and in the spirit of supporting the community that’s been so good to us, we’re going to be donating $5 of every toy sold from our shop in the month of June to a local non-profit organization that supports the LGBT+ community here in our home in Central Texas. Once the month ends we’ll gather up the total and send it to Out Youth!

This description is taken from the Out Youth website www.OutYouth.org
“Out Youth serves the Central Texas LGBTQ+ (lesbian/gay/bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) youth and their allies with programs and services to ensure these promising young people develop into happy, healthy, successful adults.
Founded in 1990, Out Youth has grown and changed over the years, but we’ve always retained our most important facet – providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth to come together, receive support, and make friends who understand who they are.
We host a variety of programs and services for youth, and provide trainings and resources for parents, teachers and community members.”

Folks are welcome to make their own private donation to this or any helpful LGBT+ non-profit organization for Pride month (and really any time of year)! We will post screenshots of the number of toys sold and the proof of donation here at the end of the month 😀 We at Strange Bedfellas are super excited to give back this Pride!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/StrangeBedfellas

I’m a nonbinary lesbian and already tired of having to explain Pride halfway through the month, but here’s a basic fucking rundown.

Pride was created by the LGBT community (pan being under B, nonbinary being under T) because of the intense discrimination trans and same-gender-attracted people faced – and still face! Pride may look like a fun rainbow party march, but it has its roots in oppression and protesting to get basic human rights.

Pride is not for asexuals, aromantics, and any versions of those. Are those real and existing? Yes! But they did not and do not face the oppression LGBT people have faced. Pride was not meant for them, and things like asexual floats in the parade carrying their signs about not wanting to fuck does send the underlying message that everyone else at Pride is all about fucking, which is an incredibly harmful stereotype that resulted in, among other things, the AIDS crisis.

Pride is not for straight allies because they’re straight allies and not LGBT.

If you’re going to offer flag colors, take the time to make your own graphic of what you’ll be offering. Don’t leave offensive or outdated terms on the picture you are using to represent your company. Don’t use incorrect flags. It would take like ten minutes to make something original that properly represents what you want to offer.

If your company is going to be transphobic, don’t offer Pride colors (Bad Dragon). If your company is going to list offensive terms and incorrect information, don’t offer Pride colors (Xenocat Artifacts). Have the most basic understanding of what you are offering and the history behind that being offered.

If you’re going to cash in on a history of oppression and human rights violations at least act like it fucking matters.