It's June 1, babes! Pride month is here, and that means two things: hot enby summer has officially begun, and corporations are trying to convince us they like the gays now.
Every single year, I have the same conversation with (usually cis and often het) people about this, and every year I hear the same thing: that actually it's great that corporations are selling pride merch, because wouldn't I rather they do that than actively try to take away my rights?
Cool question. Let's talk about the "Don't Say Gay" bill, shall we? For those of you who live under rocks, the "Don't Say Gay" bill is a recently signed Florida bill that prevents educators from talking about gender identity and sexual orientation, thereby limiting kids' access to both representation and information. Who sponsored this bill, you may ask? Republicans, obviously, and also a whole bunch of corporations that are billed as queer-supporting and used rainbow versions of their logos for pride month last year.
And they're not alone; even more corporations with prideified logos have donated to other anti-queer causes or politicians. It happens every year.
"But Jo," you may be saying, "what about corporations like Target that didn't sponsor those bills or politicians?"
Yes, Target is surprisingly on top of it. They've got pride merch year-round. Their kids' sections are becoming more gender-inclusive. They've even reported that they're selling binders. But when you dig into it, things fall apart fast. The pride merch? Terribly limited when it isn't pride season, and mostly kind of crappy. The kids' section? Still divided by gender, just without as many big gendered signs. The "binders"? Actually compression tops (not the same thing) from TomboyX, a company famous for its claims of gender inclusivity and infamous for mistreating and misgendering transmasculine models. Sorry, Target, you're not exempt from this article.
But it doesn't matter, either. Because here's the thing:
Corporations exist to make a profit.
They're not doing this out of a selfless desire to make the world a better place for queer people. They're doing it because we are an undertapped market and they know that if they get in the door early, they can pretend they were always here with us. Target, the most-cited "supportive" corporation in my experience, doesn't care whether we live or die, as long as we die in Target clothes. And plenty of the other corporations would actively rather see us die.
Corporations are not people. They are capitalist entities that are designed to take as much money as possible from the consumer and give as little of it as possible back. I don't care how many pronoun pins and trans bandanas Target sells; it's selling them to make a profit off of us.
Now, obviously, there are corporations that genuinely support queer rights. Smaller corporations are more likely to do so, though; almost no large corporation is doing anything meaningful. At best, they drop a little money for the Trevor Project or the Human Rights Campaign (itself a horrendous org) and then go back to supporting Ron DeSantis.
So this pride month, if you can, buy from queer-owned shops. Etsy is flooded with them. There are almost certainly queer creators in your own city. Let corporations know that we aren't fooled.
(A caveat: some people do not have the money to spend on small creators, who generally charge more. If you need affirming items and you can only get them from Target, that's okay. The rest of y'all, though? Let's support our fellows.)
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