Life Through a Queer Lens
Welcome to the Life Through a Queer Lens Podcast, where anyone with an open mind and heart can learn about the LGBTQIA+ Community from the people within it! We're your hosts, Jenene (she/her, they/them) and Kit (they/them).
Life Through a Queer Lens
EP49: Bridging Generations: Queer Stories and Parental Growth
Ever wondered how watching a beloved childhood movie, like "The Birdcage," can tie into profound life lessons? Join us as we reminisce about our earliest encounters with queerness and share heartfelt stories of family dynamics, including a touching tale of a gay uncle bridging the gap with a homophobic father. We'll reflect on how these personal milestones and relationships serve as time markers that shape our understanding of life’s events, and honor a father’s journey to cultivate acceptance in his child despite his own biases.
Shifting gears, we confront the harsh realities of aging within a capitalist society. Through the lens of my Great Aunt Dee, who remains fiercely independent at nearly 99, we examine the financial and systemic barriers that force many elderly into nursing homes. This conversation unearths broader themes of ableism and systemic oppression, urging a compassionate and supportive approach to elder care. Plus, get a sneak peek into an intriguing discovery by queer and trans TikTok sleuths that promises an exciting reveal in our next episode.
Finally, we tackle the troubling phenomenon of self-hatred manifesting as bigotry, with JK Rowling as a prime example. Learn about the irony of conservative figures on platforms like Grindr and the critical need to distinguish beloved works from their creators’ problematic views. We also recount the origins of the rainbow pride flag, celebrating its enduring message of hope and unity. As we wrap up, we leave you with a heartfelt reminder to stay safe and true to yourselves.
Check out our linktree
If anyone is seeking a safe place for chiropractic care on Long Island, you're welcome at Sound Chiropractic in Oakdale, NY.
For Chiropractic care or information,
check out our link tree here
directly to website here
You saw the birdcage?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you were seven yeah, definitely young, because I remember watching it with my father and my father passed away when I was 11. So it was definitely, and he wasn't sick yet. You know what I mean? He was still well, he wasn't experiencing his shoulder pain, which started about a year before he was diagnosed-ish Because it ended up being a tumor. So, yeah, I was probably about nine, I would say at the oldest, because it was before things started getting a little weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's young, it's it's so wild A lot of the times. That's how I figure out time and how old I was is almost like how people use Christ's birth and crucifixion. I use my dad getting sick. I do that. I do that, yeah, Like I'll be like, okay, so he was like feeling like this, so it was probably like around this time, and now they like this is what he wasn't doing. Well, so I was probably about this age. Oh yeah, it was after he was gone, so somewhere around here. Yeah it's so weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do the same thing too, although my dad didn't pass away as young, but I still. I'm like oh that that was your dad get diagnosed. Oh, that was the year where that was the month dad passed away, or oh, that was. I do the same thing, use it as reference, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1:But also being seven and being exposed to things I'm over here going. That was the age I started playing doctor with my friends real.
Speaker 2:I don't think I was definitely doing stuff like that too. Mind you, it was. It was also one of those things where queerness was never weird. It was never one of those things where it was you were either straight or queer and and one was different than the other. It was just both just were like.
Speaker 2:My godmother and my mom met in beauty school I mentioned that before and then she became my godmother. So clearly they got very close very quickly. Both of them ended up working at different salons and stuff like that, and one of those salons specifically was a place called sculptors and after my mom and dad got divorced, I would spend a lot of time at that salon on the days where my father was working or I had to go to work with my godmother or just however it worked out. I would end up at the salon a lot and it was owned by my uncle Frank, who is queer, he's a gay man and he at the time was dating my uncle Nelson for years and they ended up getting married basically the same year. It was legalized and stuff like that, and I'd been around them since.
Speaker 2:I was like three yeah, like, maybe even sooner, like I can't remember a point in my life that they weren't in it and it was just I would walk into the salon and they were just there and it was just normal. I had my 10th birthday party at their house because they had an in-ground pool and they let, let me have everyone over to have my 10th birthday party there.
Speaker 2:They were always just a part of the family. It was never so. I think the birdcage was never really seen as an out-there movie to show, because one of the only out-there aspects of it is the fact that there's a gay couple. That's the only real thing that makes it out there to show a seven-year-old is the fact that it's a gay couple doing the same things you would see a straight couple doing in a romantic comedy. But that was never any different for me. Seeing a gay couple do the same things you would see a straight couple do in a romantic comedy was that was just like yeah, duh, they're in a romantic comedy. What do you expect them to do?
Speaker 2:and I think so, seven year old that's, you know it's yeah, it's normal, because they don't know any better I may have been a little closer to nine, it was never really something that was an outside thing like. Even and this is coming from someone like my father had his demons. He was homophobic and by the end of his life he released a lot of that because my Uncle Nelson was his end-of-life duo. My Uncle Nelson helped him accept death. If it wasn't for a gay man, my father would have never been able to let go and move on peacefully and he understood that to the point where my uncle Nelson, my dad, was buried with three photos in his lapel pocket. One of them was a picture of me and him, one of them was a picture of him and my godmother and the third was a picture of uncle Nelson.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's full circle though. Yeah, exactly, I remember you saying in the Gay Men's Chorus episode that I just actually re-listened to that your dad wasn't really like a hater of queer people but he didn't really understand them and wasn't really like fully accepting and had his demons with it but then had a lot to work through.
Speaker 2:And it was always one of those things where he was also racist. He didn't want to pass on his prejudices, though he didn't want his hate to be some type of, like family heirloom to pass down from generation to generation. He wanted to break the cycle and actively did his best to break the cycle in raising me and that's something that I will always commend him for. Like, that takes a lot to recognize that you are not a good person or as good of a person as you wish you could be by any means, and you don't want your kid to be like you. You want your kid to be better than you and you're willing to put aside your own issues to make sure that happens.
Speaker 1:At least he was self-aware, because most people I don't want to generalize and say most people, but there are too many people out there that have those prejudices that don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2:The only reason he was as self-aware as he was because he almost died twice in his 20s. And when I say almost died the first time, his mother was literally told to plan his funeral because he was dying of cancer there. They didn't see, that was it. And then the second time, he got encephalitis in the left half of his brain and was two days from being sent to a nursing home for the rest of his life. When he woke up, damn, the fact that he didn't die was a miracle, genuinely. They, my mom, brought in a faith healer that my tt, lisa, had suggested she bring in, and two days later he woke up and no one could explain it. No one.
Speaker 1:Everyone was just like second chances or third chance?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, literally he was given three separate chances. And that third chance he said I'm not fucking this up and it really gave him a different perspective on not just himself but the entire world around him and how he wanted to impact that world. I've never seen a funeral bigger than his ever pretend TV funerals. I've never seen one that topped his. It was insane. They had to shut down the entire half of route 80 in new jersey, the, the massive highway that, yeah, they had to shut down an entire section of route 80 east. I believe it was just for us to get from the church to the cemetery because there were so many fucking cars. Wow, yeah, and thankfully, my father's older brother used to work for the police department, so they were able to do that. And, yes, a cab, extenuating circumstances be what they be.
Speaker 1:We were able to do that yeah. So we had somebody to help facilitate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it was. It was literally like I was in the limo in the front as his kid and I turned around and you literally couldn't see the end of the cars. I could not find where the line of cars ended. I had people coming up to me telling me about my father that I had never seen before that day and never saw since. I was like who the fuck?
Speaker 1:are you? And how old again was he when he passed 41. It's crazy that's younger than I am now. That's so crazy to think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was 41. And that's another thing that I recognized, younger than a lot of my peers, was how young certain ages are Like. I remember my friends being like oh, at least 40 is old, and I was like no. As a little 11 year old I was like no, 40 is not enough time, I can rest that.
Speaker 1:It's definitely not enough time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why certain people that are like oh yeah, the average age that people live to is 70 or 75. And they're aiming for that and I'm like we have the capacity to be centurions. We can live to a hundred, we can live past a hundred. Not saying that everybody will, but I think if you're striving for 70 and you come short, you're fucked, you're gonna die young. Strive for 100 at least.
Speaker 2:if you come up short, you live till 85 yeah, no, exactly I I'm striving for, I don't know, 90 ish.
Speaker 1:That's good, that's better than 70 because the thing is you don't want to be 100 and be like decrepit and in a nursing home relying on people to take care of you and you're like shitting your pants and everything. You want to be a healthy 100-year-old, independent, at home and whatever. My great aunt Dee, she's going to be 99 next month, september 30th. She's going to be 99 and she's still living at home. She's still independent, granted, she has a person that comes in every day that prepares her meals and does her laundry and helps her shower and stuff, because, honestly, she's not able to do it herself anymore. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll say, though, the big thing is, a lot of the reasons why people end up in nursing homes is because all they would really need is the same things that your great aunt needs. However, they can't afford that at-home care. The only option they have is a nursing home. That's a lot of the times what ends up happening is you'll see elderly people who are capable of living on their own and capable of caring for themselves. They just need help with a couple of things. But if they don't have a family member who's willing to come stay with them for those couple of things and they can't afford at-home care a nursing home is the only other option. That is now plan A.
Speaker 1:Her husband passed away, so they prepared, they tried. Not everybody is able to, that's exactly it, and that's a lot of the instances that you see in nursing homes is people.
Speaker 2:they don't need that much help, but they can't afford the lower level of care, which is fucking crazy as someone who used to work as a DSP, the long-term the care system in this country is just one of the many systems that's fucked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2:And it's hemorrhaging employees like you wouldn't believe Yep.
Speaker 1:No, I'm right there with you. Yeah, yep, no, I'm right there with you, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's a lot of the times that, you see, is just an inability to afford a more mid level of care. Because it's shocking how mid care is less likely to be covered by things like Medicare, things like government services, than full-blown 24-7 care like, yeah, like my grandmother, she wouldn't be able to. She's on medicare, she wouldn't be able to afford an at-home aid but she also wouldn't really need a nursing home. But there are things that I have to help her with pretty consistently that she can't do by herself, which is totally fine, but but it definitely creates a what. What would happen?
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, yeah, no, I get that the aging population is not sacred in our culture and so there's no real system in place to take care of them as they age, because our country just doesn't give a fuck about them. And I think it's just capitalism.
Speaker 1:Exactly I was going to say because of the systemic issues in this country. Oftentimes they get preyed upon from many different angles. It's a lot bigger and deeper than just, oh, they can't afford a nursing home. There's reasons why they can't afford it. Oh yeah, because the structures and the systems in place make sure they can't afford it. Yes, absolutely, yes, absolutely, and there are some that are outliers to the rule. But, like I said, a lot of it's happenstance, a lot of it's oh. Do you think she'd want to lose her husband after being married? For how many years? Shit, she's. Like I said, she's going to be 99. The only reason why she got a little bit of extra is because he happened to die before her and they set up for that through life insurance.
Speaker 2:But not everybody does that. Not everybody has the opportunity like certain opportunities. Like I said, it's a lot of its happenstance. Absolutely I say that there's in a capitalist system, especially one like ours, that has very few, if really any, outside of things like social security and Medicare and Medicaid social programs to assist. It's one of those things where you end up with a system where, unless you are able to provide some form of productivity to capitalism, you are deemed worthless. Your care is no longer necessary because you cannot provide for the capitalist system. That's why disabled people aren't treated fairly and accessibility is not done in the way that it should be. It's your point to capitalism and that feeds into the ableism of. If you can't be productive, what's your point?
Speaker 1:Exactly what's your purpose of being here. Can't be productive what's your point Exactly what's your purpose of being here, Like why should we help take care of you? Yeah, totally Now.
Speaker 2:I get that 100%. A lot of these systems end up feeding into each other. We were talking about last episode intersectionality. Everything overlaps. The reason our oppression is linked is because our oppressors are linked.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, everything's just so interconnected and overlapping. Yeah, yep, Yep, yep, we'd have to rip the system up by its roots.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly it. That's why a lot of that are looked at as very extreme, if you will, are just necessary things like the abolishment movements. It's because of the fact that these things are rotten at their core and you can't just paint over that. You can't just cover that up to completely tear it apart. Speaking of just painting over things and covering things up, before we end the episode, I have something fucking amazing to tell you. Oh god, I can't wait. So tiktok sleuths and uh the uh queer, queer trans people of tiktok and twitter have uh taken a closer look at jk rowling's profile picture on on twitter and other social media apps and realized that her walls have been covered in black mold since about 2020. Oh my God, and it's just gotten worse. What? Yeah, her walls are covered in black mold and it's really bad now, but people started going back through her profile photos throughout the years and started seeing it in 2020.
Speaker 1:That's fucking weird.
Speaker 2:And then she tried to. She uploaded a new profile picture to not show the black mold and all I could describe it as is like a bird dick in the background. It was the weirdest looking thing and everyone was just like ma'am, why can't you find a selfie background?
Speaker 1:You're a billionaire. Exactly yeah, hire someone Figure it out, it's not that hard.
Speaker 2:Why are you struggling to find a background? Bitch, go outside.
Speaker 1:So this mold is traced back to 2020?
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is right around the time that she started going crazy, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was going to say that's probably what affected her brain.
Speaker 2:It's almost like black mold can cause psychosis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no shit, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:So yeah, or mood destabilization more, more than, more than psychosis but yeah, uh, black mold causes a lot of physical and mental health issues and her home is soaked in it yeah, a lot of times you can't see mold you can literally the fact that you can see it speaks to how bad it is it is crawling up the walls. It was insane to see.
Speaker 1:I was like miss ma'am no fucking grody nasty bitch and where does she even live? What kind? Of house does she have that? There's, yeah, but what like where no? Okay, I was just curious because, like, what kind of house has mold in there in a main space like that, like it's covering the walls? It's just so crazy, unless she's like hanging out in a basement.
Speaker 2:But even still, why would you let your basement just be covered in mold Again? It's not like she doesn't have the money to fix this Right. It's like RFK's brain worms. The it's like RFK's brain worms. The mold worms are telling her to keep the mold. Don't get rid of the mold, Just keep it.
Speaker 1:We like it here. Yeah, the worms are going like we hate gay people.
Speaker 2:We're staying until we get rid of them. Fuck the queers. Go scream at some trans women Mold. Go scream at the trans women Mold mold. Go scream at the trans women mold. I'm imagining that these mold things sound like grunkle stan from from gravity falls. I started watching it, guys, but I am imagining these mold worms just sounding like grunkle stan. Just yeah, keep going with it rolling the mold hey, maybe the worms are like projecting.
Speaker 1:Because she doesn't like herself. We know we don't like.
Speaker 2:She doesn't like herself because she's just well, that's the thing is it's obvious anyone who spends that much time attacking other people fucking hates themselves. Spoiler exactly anyone who spends that much time attacking another group of people just for loving themselves fucking hates who they see in the mirror. I totally agree with you. It's so funny because literally just at the RNC in Milwaukee, grindr in the entire city stopped working because of how many Republicans were trying to find male hookups at the RNC. Yeah, wow. However, saying things they crashed Grindr. Yes, they literally broke broke grinder for the entirety of milwaukee.
Speaker 1:Wow because you know the call is usually coming from inside the house.
Speaker 2:She's just a hateful, bigoted bitch who fucking hates herself so much and has hated herself for years. That's why there's racism in the harry potter books. That's why she couldn't think of a better name for her only Asian character. That's why all these she fucking hates herself guys. That's why she's a Holocaust denier. She's looking for attention because she hates who she sees in the mirror. She's a freak. She's a weirdo. She needs to get out of other people's pants and other people's business and she Fuck freak. She's a weirdo. She needs to get out of other people's pants and other people's business and she fuck it. She needs to learn some self-love because she hates herself. I promise you that. So just remember that next time jk gets under your skin. Just remember. No one hates themselves like someone who would attack other people like that yeah no, she can't stand herself and that's why she hates us.
Speaker 2:She hates us because of how much we unabashedly, fearlessly, amazingly, love ourselves, and she's jealous of that and each other, yeah she wishes that she could love herself like we love ourselves. She wishes other people could love her for who she is, not just what she can give or what she's done. She doesn't have that. She's lonely, she's sad and she fucking hates herself. And her house is covered in black mold. Get wrecked.
Speaker 1:Mic drop.
Speaker 2:And the best part is that she can't sue me because I'm not in the UK. Bitch Freedom of speech, that's right. She is also a Holocaust denier, yeah which is mind-blowing to me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it just, and I get it as someone who was a huge fan of the Maximum Ride series. I wasn't a big Harry Potter kid, sorry y'all, I just wasn't. But I loved James Patterson. I loved James Patterson's work. I love the Maximum Ride series got me through so much shit. I wanted to be Fang. I don't know if y'all understand, I wanted to be that boy. I wanted to be him so bad. I wanted to be able to just sit still and turn, invisible. That would be great, yeah but especially situationally.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'd be a great superpower exactly no.
Speaker 2:Fang was fantastic. I wanted to be him so bad. But james patterson is a shitbag. James patterson is on fox news all the fucking time. He's a terrible person to the point where I don't buy his thing. I won't be owning maximum ride again unless I can find it used. If I can find it used, sure, then I'll buy it because I know he won't be getting the money for it. But if I can't find that series used, I'm not gonna own it. If I can't find maximum ride stuff bootlegged or pirated or used again, I'm not fucking buying it. I won't be giving him my money because of the fact that he's a trash human being who has trash, fucking opinions. And this is coming from someone who absolutely did. Yo even the Danny X books, the ones about that fucking alien kid that ended up being kind of dumb. I even loved those books. I was a big James Patterson kid, so I get it. It really sucks when your favorite author or your favorite artist or your series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your favorite guy or gal ends up being a shithead. It really sucks. But the best thing to do is remember the lessons that you took from that piece of media personally. Remember the impact that piece of media had on you personally. Let yourself have that, but detach yourself completely from the artists like that. They're not worth it. I still talk about maximum ride, but I don't recommend other people read it unless they can get it used, because he's a shitbag and I don't think you should read shitty shitbag authors. There's much better people writing books out there.
Speaker 1:Find them, yeah if we're going to continue the message and the advocacy and everything, we can't be supporting people that don't support us. It's just exact, simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I agree so, yeah, fuck jk rowling, and I hope those mold worms give her one four. We have to keep that part in this episode, bro, that was so funny I love the mold worms.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is like stage four of a genocide against trans people, absolutely, and there is no arguing that, there is no saying like no, maybe not no, that's the and that's why it's a little even. The perfect example is the right. Kyle Rittenhouse the other day came out and said he wasn't going to vote for Trump and almost immediately right wing pundits started calling him trans. What him trans. What that doesn't make sense Almost like almost, because that's exactly what the Nazi party did is anytime someone disagreed with them, they would call them Jewish.
Speaker 1:I feel like that is a classic example of gaslighting because it has nothing to do with the price of eggs and it makes people go. What, what? The how is that related? What the fuck does that have to do with the price of eggs? Yeah, makes people go. What? How is that related? What the fuck does that have to do with the price of eggs?
Speaker 2:And they're like no, you're trans, and then it just it's gaslighting. That's what. That is Very dangerous because again it mirrors Nazi Germany. It turns an identity into an insult, right Like back in in nazi germany, when people would basically be accused of being jewish. Nowadays, people accused of being trans. Look at imani khalif right, it's yours, it's I can't even believe it.
Speaker 1:It's so ludicrous. I can't even believe that this is happening and it's being allowed to happen like it's just.
Speaker 2:It's a crime what's the Geneva convention? But what do I know? Yeah, targeting specific groups of people is something that the Geneva Convention was like. Hey, let's not do that again. Yeah let's prevent that from happening. Ever the fuck again. What the fuck?
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I feel like the war on the trans community. If we're going to get past that it needs, they need more support from within the queer community. There can't be a division within our own community. Yes, like that can't happen.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely, and unfortunately that's exactly. What we are seeing is major divisions within the queer community, and we have the same enemies your fellow community members. Even if those fellow community members are a little misinformed or uninformed, they're not your enemy, they're not the bad guy, they're just misinformed or uninformed. Teach them, just teach them. That's what we got to do. Coming after each other. That's what they want us to do. Yeah, they want more provisions. Yeah, they want us to be at each other's throats, because when we're at each other's throats, we're not getting anything done. Yeah, we're not moving in the right.
Speaker 1:We're not banded together. It reminds me of when and I don't know if this is still a thing, but when more feminine lesbians would be mad butch lesbians because they'd be like you're not real lesbians, because you're like men, and if you want to be a man, then just go be a man and there's. It's like that in a way, where you have all this division in the division, the division between masked lesbians and femme lesbians. Oh, you're not really a lesbian you know you're.
Speaker 2:Why are you so feminine? Are you trying to get the attention of a man? Oh, I just dress this way because I like to. What do you mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm just being a person. Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's crazy again.
Speaker 2:Y'all just there and we're not saying mind you, when I say like we are not the enemy, I'm not saying every conservative is out to get you. I'm not saying enemy to make you guys afraid. I'm not saying enemy in the sense where, like, something is happening and we all need a revolution and there will be no. I'm saying enemy in the sense of the transphobes, the people who don't like us, the people who the leopards. Yeah, that's just how that works?
Speaker 1:no, they definitely, well, they do when it comes to they do, but not when it comes to food but and solidarity sticking with the people who, that's how we are going to make it through.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is that comes, you know what I mean. Even if that's just working toward more queer rights, even if nothing does go backwards, the solidarity is what's really going to get us through the other side. And then, once we're at a place where we can look around and say liberation, we extend that liberation out to everyone who needs it. Once we get to and, mind you, I don't think any of us are going to live to see this point, but that's the point where we should be arguing amongst ourselves, the point where we should be Fighting ourselves the point where we should be Fighting for a future that we would like to live today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly that's what we need to be doing now, and that's what we need to be doing until we are in that future that probably none of us are going to see. Once we're there, though, that's when we can be like okay, now let's do some infighting. Now let's figure this out. The infighting is still important because, like I said, I was a part of that 2010, 2014 Tumblr discourse. That was literally just infighting, and it was important because it helped us lay out where we are now, where we want to be.
Speaker 2:That's how queer became an overarching identity term, was a discourse and people realizing like, oh wait, we're all just cool with this. Yeah, let's just queer. That works. Yeah. Yeah, in a microcosm sense, there were many other discussions occurring. There was many other things occurring around queer, which is something we'll go into in the future, but, yeah, that was a big part of it. Was that that online discourse? And yes, it is very important. We also have to remember that's not the pinnacle, that's not the most important thing right now. That's near the bottom, and it feels like we're pushing it a little closer to the top than it deserves to be in stage four of a trans genocide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to look at the priorities and what's pressing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't get into the layers. I couldn't get into that thought.
Speaker 1:I couldn't figure out how I wanted that to go, and there's a hierarchy of how things should be addressed, in order of importance and we need to be addressing our most marginalized people first.
Speaker 2:we need to be addressing the people who are most at risk of violence being committed against them first, and then from there we can move into everything else Again. It's just down the line, from the most in need to the least in need to the inner fighting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if we don't do it that way, then we're not stable enough to move forward.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:You want to jump to that interesting fact?
Speaker 2:Okay. So most, if not all, of us know that the beloved rainbow pride flag was first created by Gilbert Baker and unveiled in 1978. But the reason behind Gilbert's choice to make an everlasting symbol for our community came from someone close to Baker and the community at large. In 1977, after Harvey Milk was elected into office as one of the first openly queer politicians in the country, he and other activists around Baker urged him to create a unifying symbol for the LGBTQIA plus community that, at its very core, stands for peace, love and unity. Up until this point, the only symbol our community had to unify around was the pink triangle, and while this symbol is still held close by many, especially recently due to its distinct detachment from rainbow capitalism, the root of that symbol is vitriolic hatred. So Harvey Milk wanted a symbol that, from its root, from its core, was based around unity, hope, love, compassion, rather than the only symbol we had, which was the pink triangle. We had that very dark history to it.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So that's the reason behind the rainbow flag and, yes, while it has been massively, violently co-opted by capitalism to sell our movement back to us in a very degrading way. It, at its core, at its invention, had extraordinarily good intentions and it was to create a symbol, at its root, of unity, compassion and love stay safe, stay queer.
Speaker 1:That's an awesome ending. Love it, Agreed, perfect.