Thread by @HumanGayMale

🧵 Some advice to companies (and individuals) as we enter “LGBT+” History Month #LGBTplusHM (repurposed from an article I wrote for Pride Month last year):

1) Don't just slap a rainbow on your logo and think that's enough. That's just empty virtue signalling.

2) Stop using the "progress flag" with the extra colours pointing in from one side, pushing the LGB rainbow flag colours out. The standard flag with six colours covers all you need for for gay rights.

3) Don't say or use "Queer". It's a homophobic slur. When Millennials & Gen Z say they've 'reclaimed' it, they are not speaking for the generations of gay men in particular who were on the receiving end of the bullying and abuse that comes along with that word.

4) Don't use "LGBTQ+". There is not one homogenous group of people. You wouldn't use "BAME" to lump together very different groups of people with different ethnicities or skin colours, so stop the forced-teaming of sexual orientation with gender identity.

5) Don't give away other people's rights because you want to look "progressive" or "inclusive". Women's boundaries are not yours to give away (and I'm speaking to women here as much as men).

6) Don't allow males who proclaim to be women into spaces that are protected as single sex spaces for females. Gay men and lesbians are not asking you to give up any boundaries. Please don't think that those who are asking you to are doing so in our name.

7) Don't misrepresent gay history by perpetuating myths that someone wasn't the sex they actually were, or are just plain false. Marsha P Johnson wasn't at the Stonewall Inn when the riot broke out, so certainly didn't start it, & was a gay man / drag queen, not a "transwoman".

(btw, You can find recorded interviews with Marsha/Malcom online clarifying this. Also, the Stonewall uprising was not the start of gay rights, nor was it the "first Pride". Learn some actual gay history and don't be homophobic.)

8) Don't support charities or events that are encouraging or supporting the notion that children can be "born in the wrong body". There is such a thing as gender dysphoria, but most kids who have it will grow out of it at puberty, & most of them just turn out to be gay/lesbian.

9) And if you already know all of the above, then do the most important thing you can do. Speak up and call it out. If your workplace has any woke BS activities for "LGBT+" History Month, then call out any lies, falsehoods or homophobia. Stand up. Resist. You won't be alone.