“… We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.. .”

‘… Twas the night before Pride Month
When brands slapped rainbows on photos,
Every social platform prepared,
For a new rainbow logo…’
Except this year, of course. This year, it’s different.
Queer people like to poke fun at the so-called “rainbow washing,” every June brings, the way brands treat the rainbow like a goddamn Fleur de Lis beginning precisely at midnight EST on the first of June and ending a month later. For many corporations it’s an ironic contrast: CVS and AT&T, for example, changed their profile pictures last year while quietly donating to anti-LGBTQ groups. But, if nothing else, it served as a marker of public acceptance, because if supporting queer people was “brand safe” then public opinion must be leaning enough towards support for the LGBTQ community to make it profitable.
This year, though, scroll through Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok and you might notice a departure from this trend: this year, there are no rainbows. As freeing as this might seem for the most vocal critics of rainbow washing, it’s not like corporations heard the complaints of LGBTQ people and listened; rather, it implies that support for the queer community is no longer widespread enough to be considered “profitable.” The queer community obviously doesn’t need corporations to stand with them in order to survive, but as a barometer of public opinion, abandoning the image of support makes for a pretty bleak reading.
We’re entering a new era of turmoil for the LGBTQ community. Pride Month this year arrived in the wake of anti-trans panic, drag bans, book restrictions, hate crimes, and general anti-queer sentiment. The answer to this attack on queer rights will likely be long-fought and hard-won and certainly not achieved through rainbow profile pictures. I don’t know, though – I kind of miss the days when the public atmosphere was accepting enough that corporate treatment of Pride Month warranted an eye roll instead of worry. I know there’s a middle ground here, a world where the queer community is accepted as a fact of life and not for profit, but it’s becoming harder for me to see that world – even if I know we’ll get there eventually. (When all those bigoted and opinionated old white guys have moved on to the great debating chamber in the sky and are busy shouting down St Peter.) Happy Pride Month to all, and to all a good night.