Every year ahead of Pride Month, the internet debates whether kink has a place at events meant to celebrate LGBTQ people and identity.

However, kink has historically been a part of Pride and the LGBTQ rights movement as a whole.⬇️

insider.com/kink-at-pride-…
Kink is an umbrella term referring to specific sexual desires people have, which can range from dirty talk to BDSM.

Discourse revolves around whether its apparel and paraphernalia render the space unsafe for minors or nonconsensually involve observers.

insider.com/myths-about-bd…
Discussions around the presence of kink at Pride have been emerging online over the past decade, with increasing intensity across the latter half of the 2010s.

Tumblr, in particular, has a reputation for being a breeding ground for queer discourse.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… Text graphic featuring a quote from Cates Holderness, Tumblr
The controversy over whether kink should be allowed at Pride is merely the latest in a line of questions around who is considered part of the queer community and who gets to participate in ostensibly queer spaces.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-…
Kink has been a part of Pride since its inception in 1969. While drag isn’t considered kink in 2021, it was considered sexually deviant in the 20th century. In 1969, New York City still had laws that prohibited “cross-dressing.”

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… A photo featuring Sylvia Rivera in New York City with text t
The leather community, which is under the umbrella of kink, also has historic roots in queer spaces, dating back to the 1940s.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… A text graphic that reads, 'Leather bars became safe spaces
The Stonewall Uprising has connections to kink. On that fateful June night in 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn.

Patrons of the bar — trans women of color, homeless queer teens, drag queens, lesbians, and leather daddies — fought back.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… Photo depicting a crowd during the Stonewall Inn raid with t
Marriage has also become a flashpoint in debates around Pride.

Michael Bronski, a professor at Harvard University, told Insider that in the past, people viewed marriage equality as a step towards assimilation, rather than liberation.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… Text graphic featuring a quote from Michael Bronski, profess
With marriage, came the idea that the only respectable queer person is one who wanted 2.5 kids, a white picket fence, and “the American Dream.”

insider.com/kink-at-pride-… Text graphic that reads, 'While queer folks who had the acce
There are also concerns as to whether Pride, in its current celebratory state, reckons with issues within the community like police brutality and the fact that 2020 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the United States.

insider.com/insider-databa…
As this tension continues, it speaks to a volume of historical dissonance in the LGBTQ rights movement between acceptance liberation.

insider.com/kink-at-pride-…
📣 Should kink have a place at Pride?

insider.com/kink-at-pride-…

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