Pride

I am a bisexual.

I have been out for 17 years, and I am proud. As Pride month closes, I am as proud as ever. I'm proud of the brave LGBT community around the world, daring to live as they were made despite the predations of tiny little frightened people who would see them killed or mutilated.

I have never met an LGBT person who hadn't received violence or aggression for being the way we are. I've certainly taken some flack for it. But what makes me so filled with pride is that the majority of us just get on with it. The people who hate us have an overwhelming victim complex, believing that their very existence is under threat by us just being here. They make up their little fantasies about our all-powerful agenda and delude themselves into believing that they're oppressed underdogs if the law mildly rebukes them for acts of violence. I'm white, male, British and can pass for straight if necessary. It means that I can provide a control group. I can tell you, whether people know about my sexuality does make a massive difference. A white man who appears to be straight is coddled by the world's institutions. Factor LGBT into it, and suddenly he's the object of fear.

That's where the chips have fallen. We accept it. We shrug it off, laugh it off (I enjoy reading what foaming anxiety-filled nonsense pours from the snouts of madmen like Kevin Swanson or Jim Corr). When we can, we fight back. The road to recognition is long, and it isn't over yet by a long way. Insecure manbabies like that oaf Ramzan Kadyrov still like to lock us up and murder us to make themselves feel more masculine. Empty-minded blowhards like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson will go along with our demonization just because they're too weak and pathetic to stand against it. And you know what? Get over yourselves. The LGBT community has been taking the rubbish of these industrial-strength wankers since time immemorial. We've made a lot of progress towards equal rights in the last few decades. Now, a bunch of simpering cowards and simpletons who don't know how to deal with the actual problems are blaming us again. I don't think that they realise how pathetic it makes them look (not that it matters a great deal, given that they're appealing to a base of fearful idiots). And I don't think they really understand how little we really fear them.

So yeah, we face these threats. But we don't tune into a vulpine news channel where millionaires sob about how oppressed they are. We live our lives. I love that my fellow LGBT people have the courage to live a truth rather than a lie. We have Pride Month partially to push back at the demented creatures who wish us ill purely for existing, and partially to celebrate the bravery we have all, at some time, had to show. Any LGBT person you meet has been brave at least once: when they came out. It's actually the most massive burden being lifted, and it's really easy. Once the words are out, you wonder how you could have been so difficult. But beforehand, we all had to overcome incredible fear and anxiety about how it would turn out. There are sadly many accounts of families degenerating into howling beasts rather than accept a simple and harmless truth about a loved one. My own parents didn't disown me, but never seem to have really accepted reality either. We get on fine, but I recognise that they feel the need to shelter themselves from unexpected truths. If we're honest, the world doesn't change much when you come out - but it feels like it will, and overcoming that takes a moment of massive courage. Every time you see someone who acknowledges their LGBT sexuality, remember that no matter how timid they seem, they faced that.

And I love that the vast, vast majority of heterosexuals are proud to stand with us. The frantic, swivel-eyed lunatics are a small portion of monsters and madmen. They like to make noise, and sometimes they get into positions of power where they can act on their violent urges, but that doesn't change the fact that they're the detritus of history. Just as they were wrong about race, religion, women and everything else they've had positions on, they are wrong about the LGBT community. As with all bigots, homophobes will eventually be rendered extinct. Reason will slowly displace hatred, and love will replace fear. The LGBT community is not a threat to anyone. We're just people, as diverse in personality and ideology as any other sampling of humanity.

Much love to both bravery of the LGBT community and our allies, who represent the vast majority of heterosexuals. Together we will make a better world.