Published June 1, 2025
Pride Month starts today. If you aren’t LGBTQIA+ and are tempted to say “Happy Pride” to someone who is, please take a moment. Read the room. Review the tense, riotous roots of Pride Month. Consider who the person is and how well you know them.
For some, “Happy Pride” lands about like “Happy Memorial Day” does to people who know what that day is all about, especially if they have casualties of war in their family tree.
I have queer friends who say “Happy Pride” to their queer friends, but even they feel a little weird about it given historical context and the present moment.
Pride is both a celebration and a time to stake our place in the world and speak truth to power.
— ACLU (@aclu.org) June 1, 2025 at 9:13 AM
If you are in doubt, some version of “I hope you have a safe, meaningful Pride Month and find joy amid everything bad that’s going on.”
We are all different. Not a monolith. If you know that the person you’re speaking to would be glad to hear it, let the “Happy Pride” fly. Belt it out, baby.
Pride is not a performance.
It is survival made visible.
A refusal to vanish.
A history written in joy and blood.To everyone still here—
still loving, still fighting—You are the revolution.
#Pride 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
— Echo and Ink (@echo-and-ink.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Mostly, let it show that you put some thought into it rather than reflexively saying a thing.
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH BEAUTIES🏳️🌈🌈🍬
Have a safe and happy Pride month .
— Jimmie (@jamesjorden.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 7:29 AM
The pullback of corporate support for Pride, which was always mostly suspect and all about the money, is another reason we’re giving side-eye.
Anyway, we’d all love your support, but maybe stop to consider how you express it. Thanks so much.
Monsters Incorporated
You may recall that my downward spiral took a sharp plunge when The New York Times published “In Defense of J.K. Rowling” two years ago. Since then, her reputation for anti-trans bigotry has grown, and she’s expanding her repertoire.
This Vox story continues to be updated to document some of her awfulness. Share it with friends who say there’s nothing harmful about what she’s said and done. They can’t update it fast enough. She keeps doing awful things.
J.K. Rowling uses Harry Potter wealth to fund anti-transgender organization
www.advocate.com/new…
#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA
— Transgender World (@transgenderreport.com) June 1, 2025 at 8:25 AM
If you don’t know much about my Louisiana roots, this Fast Company story leads with a reference to Sulphur, near my hometown of Lake Charles.
On days of heavy pollution in Sulphur, a southwest Louisiana town surrounded by more than 16 industrial plants, Cynthia “Cindy” Robertson once flew a red flag outside her home so her community knew they faced health hazards from high levels of soot and other pollutants.
But she stopped flying the flag after Louisiana passed a law last May that threatened fines of up to $1 million for sharing information about air quality that did not meet strict standards.
Who would want to restrict air-quality reports? Monsters.
But then there’s also this.
We’re one year away from the Louisiana legislature opening a hearing about where the sun goes at night
— Kevin Allman (@kevinallman.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Ah, Louisiana.
The Green Party, whose co-leader Adrian Ramsay in April refused to confirm that he believes trans women are women. They have thus far not meaningfully addressed this. #Pinkwashing
— badly-drawn bee 🐝 (@soapachu.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Keep watch. So many political parties and lawmakers who helped put us in danger will pay lip service to Pride, as will companies that truly don’t care about us. They just want to look good. Sort of. It’s already started across the pond.
M&S, which also advertises on GB News – helping peddle transphobic panic clickbait. Make it make sense.
— badly-drawn bee 🐝 (@soapachu.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 1:51 AM
every company from june 1st until june 30th
— reni 🦌🥭 (@reniadeb.com) June 1, 2025 at 1:08 AM
And please, don’t shop at Target.
Additional embarrassment for Target: apparently zero attention to detail for a mistake like this to slip through the cracks — “Lorem Ipsum” placeholder text on labels made it to the rack. 🤣🤡
That mistake had to pass by multiple eyes to get into stores.
#FAIL 🎯🧾 www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/ar…
— Pam Spaulding (@pamspaulding.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Finally, as the dismantling continues, remember that the USPS is one of the largest employers of Black women. And there are many layers to what’s happening.
Key pt. “Corruption thrive[s] alongside incompetence.” We created non-partisan civil service jobs so loyalty tests and the chaos of throwing out people who knew how to do the job, had the job. Today the administration is unleashing corruption with loyalty tests.
— Maya Wiley (@maya4rights.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 8:03 AM
And for anyone who still doesn’t know
This — The New York Times is not a liberal newspaper — is true and worth sharing. It’s stunning how many people still think of it that way.
My update
Status quo, such that it is. I’m awaiting a ruling on my application for long-term disability. Right now I’m unable to do much of anything but sleep and take a day or two to create and post a short blog item like this.
I drop and spill and break and bump into things all the time. My list of symptoms and problems is long. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to work again.
It’s been 209 days since I worked, and almost five months since the story I wrote that spelled out how broken I am went live. Not one manager at work, from the leader of my team all the way up the organizational chart to the top, and then all the way through The New York Times leadership tree, has reached out to ask how I’m doing.
Nothing in the way of a human response from them or any response at all from half my teammates. I’m supposed to want to return to such a place if I’m ever well enough to work again? That’s one of many questions I expect jurors and lawyers to have to contend with someday.
I wish I had better news for you.
Featured image by mehedimiad via Shutterstock.
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Thank you
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