🏴 but why's there no 'Straight Pride', though? 🏴

QUEER WORD
STRAIGHT PRIDE

What It Means:

A ‘what about us?’ argument made by some straight people in response to Pride. It uses false equivalence to suggest straight people are marginalised too, and therefore deserve their own parade.

Let’s Use It In A Sentence:

Rohit showed up to counter-protest his town's Straight Pride parade, but it was just three middle-aged men with a banner, so he went home.

Fine. Let's Talk About Straight Pride.

Every year, when Pride season begins, there's a cacophony of contrarian voices flooding social media, dominating family dinners, and warbling loudly in pubs.

And they're all asking a tedious variation of the same question:

‘Why's there no straight pride, then?’

My advice, as always, should you encounter this type of argument in the wild, is simply not to engage.

Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t take the bait. Don’t waste your breath. 

However, I’m also fully aware that some days you just can't summon the strength to take the high road. So if you absolutely must engage with these arguments, I've put together a little Q&A that you can whip out to help respond to any and all of their inane comments. 

Q: Why is there no Straight Pride?

Actually, there are. Or, at least, there have been attempts.

But they haven’t exactly been what you’d call raging successes.

In 2025, for example, Idaho’s ‘Hetero Awesome Fest’ (a name so bad that I actually kind of love it) was billed as an alternative to Pride, promising a celebration of ‘traditional gender norms and heterosexual awesomeness’. Instead, it reportedly drew only around 30 to 50 people across two days, and ended up being mocked online for low turnout, an on-stage fight, and a racism scandal involving one of its speakers.

Awesome, eh?

Then there was the 2019 Dallas Straight Pride parade, which expected a turn-out of 300, but ended up only attracting… two. Both from out of town. Even the organiser didn’t show up.

And you know why these events tend not to take off?

Because they’re not really about community, solidarity, joy, visibility, or survival.

They’re usually a queerphobic reaction to Pride, dressed up as a celebration. And it turns out that, despite having enough energy to flood social media with complaints about Pride, most of these supposedly oppressed straight people don't feel quite oppressed enough to take to the streets themselves.

Q: But isn’t Pride just discrimination against straight people?

No.

The existence of something that isn’t specifically about you is not discrimination. Sure, I get that it’s mildly upsetting not to be the centre of attention for five minutes, but that doesn’t make it a human rights issue.

Not every space needs to include everyone. That’s not exclusion. That’s how focus works.

And whilst we’re here… Pride has never been about putting down heterosexual or cisgender people. It’s about celebrating queerness in the face of systematic oppression.

Q: What do you have to be proud of? Just be who you are! Nobody cares anymore!

This is nothing but bigotry dressed up as reasonableness.

Because Pride isn’t about pride for pride’s sake.

Pride is the opposite of shame.

For decades, queer people were told to hide, to apologise, to shrink themselves down into something more acceptable.

But Pride says ‘no, actually. I will not be ashamed. I will not hide. I will not make myself smaller so you can feel more comfortable’.

And sure, in some parts of the world, things are better than they once were. But ‘better’ is not the same as ‘done’.

Queer people are still legislated against, criminalised, harassed, bullied, and discriminated against at work, at school, in healthcare, in housing, and in public life.

So yes, there is still plenty to be proud about.

And plenty still to fight for.

Q: Why can’t you just keep it private? Straight people don’t parade their sexuality around.

Well, actually…

Straight people parade their sexuality constantly. Weddings. Engagement announcements. Baby showers. Hand-holding in public. Kissing at train stations.

We just don’t call it ‘parading’ because it’s so culturally ingrained.

When people say ‘keep it private’, what they usually mean is ‘be invisible’.

And queer people have been forced to be invisible for long enough.

Pride started when we stopped agreeing to disappear.

Q: If Pride is about acceptance, why can’t straight people celebrate being straight too? Why do you get to celebrate and not us?

Because Pride isn’t about celebrating sexuality in the abstract. It’s about celebrating sexuality in the face of shame, danger, and oppression.

Straight people don’t need Pride because they have never been criminalised for being straight. They haven’t been told their sexuality is a sin, a sickness, or a threat to society. They haven’t had to hide who they are in order to keep a job, a home, a family, or to maintain their safety.

Pride exists because queerness was, and still can be, dangerous.

One is a response to oppression. The other is a response to seeing someone else get a parade.

So, there you have it.

Will this change anyone's mind? Probably not. In my experience, once someone starts passionately arguing for Straight Pride, they're usually not looking for a sensible argument.

But at least the next time the topic comes up, you’ll have something ready for the inevitable gobbledygook nonsense that gets hurled your way.

And speaking of nonsense...