#PrideMonth 🫧Rainbow Capitalism is not queer liberation.

🌈Pride Month has come and gone once more. While it has brought a lot of joy, we witness recurring examples of why there is still so much more work to do on our road towards true queer liberation. The 2025 #BangkokPride parade demonstrated this.

❓We thought Pride was about giving space for #LGBTQIAN+ folks, not taking up their space. Yet, just like we were in 2024, we were confused to see so many #Cops, #Corporations and #Politicians at Bangkok Pride 2025, accompanied by such little effort to platform the #Grassroots work that made Pride possible in the first place. So we want to know: What is the meaning of ‘Bangkok Pride’ anymore? We know what it means to us. But since cops, corporations and politicians decided to give themselves the spotlight, they should also answer this question.

✊Is ‘Bangkok Pride’ about working to make the region a safer space for LGBTQIAN+ expression? Is it to celebrate progress, while remembering to never be complacent, and therefore also continuing to push for our end goal of LGBTQIAN+ liberation? Is it to bring more visibility and acceptance for LGBTQIAN+, and drive forward their rights to not only #Survive, but #Thrive, in our #Community? 

💸Or is it about lining elite pockets, and advancing elitist political interests, through co-opting rainbows, aesthetics, and the tireless labor of LGBTQIAN+ folks, all while refusing to answer to LGBTQIAN+ demands for progress?

🏳️‍🌈Nobody is expecting perfection from cops, corporations, and politicians. While their systems are violent and dehumanizing, they only function because imperfect humans create and uphold them. But we do expect more, especially from those who have positioned themselves as ‘#Leaders’ and ‘#Decisionmakers.’ 

🥱None of these points are new. Just read our Pride 2024 post or blog, from last year. Different year, same story.

👀We reiterate: No more pushing LGBTQIAN+ grassroots advocates, anti-war activists, sex workers, performers, educators, and other pro-LBGTQIAN+ community members to the back or sidelines of Pride. No more Thai complicity in warmongering against our Southeast Asian neighbors. And no more co-opting Pride just to draw tourists to Thailand and its malls, claiming that it is ‘bringing wealth to Thailand,’ when we all know that LGBTQIAN+ and other members of Thailand’s most underrecognized groups currently barely touch the fruits of that wealth.

🫀Still, we #Celebrate the things that matter, and the progress that has been made. Namely, we once again celebrate the monumental Marriage Equality Bill, and the joy, relief, and protections this has brought to members of the Thai LGBTQIAN+ community. We want all LGBTQIAN+ folks to know that you are loved, and deserve to live and thrive. Finally, we reiterate that those who are most disproportionately dehumanized by the current system are often the ones laboring hardest to fight for collective liberation. We express particular gratitude to these folks, including those who remain underrecognized, who are doing fundamental work.

#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings 

#NoPrideInGenocide #QueerVisibility

#PinkWashing #IntersectionalFeminism #Feminism 

#CollectiveCare #RainbowCapitalism #LGBTQIAN