Brum Pride...

... was this weekend. And in spite of the bank holiday, some people have been hyper-efficient and put up photos already (Pyro Tom, Kaz and Daisy, hope you don't mind me linking to your sites). Most impressive, and looks a damned sight better than last year's shopping trolley fiasco.

The official Birmingham Gay Pride website is here, and the BBC Birmingham site has plenty of photos of the whole thing, both the parade and in the gay village.

But... while I'm sure a good time was had by all, I'm left musing a tad: has the whole Pride thing lost the original idea of wanting GLBTQ (so PC...) to be accepted by society at large and a celebration of tolerance and diversity under the banner of inclusivity, rather than a chance to look as outrageous as possible and define oneself through difference - echoes of the tongue-in-cheek adage "heterosexuality isn't normal, it's just common" spring to mind but somehow without the humour... No doubt I'm just being over-serious, but it is a point worth pondering: there is not some definite dichotomous divide between straight and gay and the LGBTQ community has to want to integrate rather than ghettoising off, and straightphobia is pretty common, even if it's in a jokey way (exactly the same as the blokes in the pub calling things they don't like 'gay'...) and that's before we get onto bi-phobia... It's a difficult one and I'm not even sure where I stand on the whole thing, other than the words 'tolerance', 'responsibility' and 'stereotypes' seem to crop up a lot (a prize for the best sentence using all 3 words). Changing times, changing attitudes and the (continuing) rise of the individual, but what about community and empathy for other groups - or have we got Only Gay in the Village syndrome?