I fought for gay rights — but trans activists have destroyed the meaning of Pride

by Bruce Bawer

I’m old enough to have been active in gay rights when you could be arrested in some American jurisdictions for a kiss.

Back then, a rainbow flag outside a bar or other establishment meant you could walk in without being kicked out — or worse. Flying it was a risk — and an act of humanity.

Then gay rights emerged, and Pride marches — i.e., earnest demonstrations for equality — morphed into Pride parades — i.e., silly displays.

Pride Month was born, complete with corporate sponsors.

These sponsorships were calculated acts, predicated on the determination the companies involved would win more gay customers than lose anti-gay customers.

The rainbow flag became just another logo.

For my part, I wish Pride would go away.

We’ve won equality. Why should gays continue to be singled out, even for the purpose of being celebrated?

And for what are we being celebrated, anyway?

I don’t expect to be applauded for being left-handed. Being gay is an attribute, not an accomplishment.

Then there’s this: Pride Month isn’t just about gays anymore.

It’s about the whole “LGBTQI+” crowd — a “community” most gays never asked to join and whose guiding ideology makes most of us scratch our heads in confusion.

Indeed, we’re in the odd position of seeing what used to be our movement co-opted by activists whose wacky theories about the nature of gender render such labels as male and female, gay and straight, utterly meaningless.

Who’s thrilled by this development? Not many people, gay or straight.

But some of our biggest corporations are all in.

Last year, The Post’s Karol Markowicz reported on a Disney executive who “vowed” to “make at least half the characters in the company’s productions LGBTQIA and racial minorities by year’s end.”

A few weeks ago, Anheuser-Busch paid Dylan Mulvaney, a man who says he’s a little girl, to promote Bud Light.

And most recently, Target marketed “chest binders” and other trans-related items to small children.

To be sure, it only makes sense for an entertainment monolith like Disney to adjust its programming to reflect social change.

And firms like Anheuser-Busch have always tried to appeal to specific demographic groups.

The problem with these arguments is that America hasn’t gone woke. Americans don’t believe boys can be girls.

That’s why Disney and Target are losing money.

It’s why the mass rejection of Bud Light is perhaps the most successful boycott ever.

It’s become clear where Americans stand on this nonsense.

Why, then, are major firms — the kind that, years ago, were reluctant to dip their toes too early into the still-chilly waters of the gay-rights movement — pushing this creepy new stuff so eagerly?

One answer is young, expensively educated marketing executives who live in a bubble of class and generation.

At their fancy colleges, they learned there’s a spectrum of genders, unrelated to biological sex.

And they learned it’s cool to be “queer” — which has nothing to do with being gay but means, rather, that one’s identity is, in some way, in tension with mainstream norms.

(Think of it this way: If one’s sexual orientation is fixed and permanent, “queerness” is ever fluid and always performative — as illustrated perfectly by Dylan Mulvaney, a self-dramatizing narcissist whose latest move was to assert that he’s attracted to women.)

Trans, queer, woke: It’s all part of the same ideological grab bag, along with the weird new determination to expose kids to drag queens (a tiny subset of gay people who have no more business practicing their craft in front of minors than hookers or morticians).

And all of it — driven as it is by a radical rejection of objective truth — is a threat to everything we refer to when we speak of civilization.

But it’s being pushed relentlessly by groups like Human Rights Campaign (a gay-rights organization turned avid promoter of transgenderism) and, as presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has noted, by giant investment bankers like BlackRock and Vanguard Group that, for whatever reason, are devoutly committed to the woke agenda.

What can you do about it?

If you’re a loyal Anheuser-Busch customer, find some other beer to drink.

First published in the New York Post.