Committed Technically

Why Pride?

Ashley & Brandon Season 1 Episode 21

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0:00 | 24:47

Why do we march? Why the rainbow? And why does the riot from 1969 still shape our world today?

Committed Gang, today we're deep diving into the vibrant history, hard-fought victories, and cultural impact of Pride Month. Whether you're a lifelong LGBTQIA+ member, an ally, or just curious about why Pride is celebrated to begin with.

Sit back, wave your rainbow flags, and pop in your headphones. It's time to celebrate, chat, and yap about it!

Distribution: Buzzsprout

Editing and Production: Riverside.FM Studios

Music: "Good Things Take Time" by Otto.mp3 and Upbeat

SPEAKER_02

Hi gay.

SPEAKER_00

Faggot.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, what you said? Queen. I can't believe it's the last weekend of pride. That's so sad.

SPEAKER_00

Very sad.

SPEAKER_02

So what did you do this month that just screamed queer? How did you celebrate pride? Besides being gay yourself.

unknown

Oh. Oh.

SPEAKER_00

T and J. Damn. Last weekend I went to the big gay market in Riverside. Love. Yeah, so that was pretty cool. It was my first time going with my bands and King Neptune. Guples. Gouples. Yeah. I can't. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02

She used to have things Little Mermaid, girl.

SPEAKER_00

Couples. Yeah. And then her family. It was a whole fucking thing. And then Guples invited. Disc disc girl.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

But she didn't. I don't know. She's weird.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

Not weird, but like she's. She didn't stay with her. Like she kept wandering off.

SPEAKER_02

Is it because it was all of you guys?

SPEAKER_00

No, because like it was supposed to be like a like a date. Right. Between the two of them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And she just like kept wandering off.

SPEAKER_02

Weird.

SPEAKER_00

So it was weird.

SPEAKER_02

I wonder if you guys scared her.

SPEAKER_00

We weren't even with them. Oh. You stayed back so they could like actually like talk and do things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And she just kept wandering off. I don't know. It was weird. Who? Um, so I did that. That was fun. I got a little crocheted octopus for my car. Hell yeah. He's cute.

SPEAKER_01

Love that.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, and then tomorrow we're going to the uh Pride Crawl dental. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So with my my boyfriend.

SPEAKER_02

With your boyfriend?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Nice. See. What about you?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think it's about time I let the cat out of the bag a little bit. I've been doing something this month and kind of some previous months beforehand. I have been creating and making a new little ally. Ally.

SPEAKER_00

We're finally announcing the baby.

SPEAKER_02

We're finally announcing the baby. I'm pregnant. I got knocked up. Ironically, if you listen to the Kansas City episode, it was there.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, we should. To go off script, we shouldn't tell them about the story.

SPEAKER_02

What I think we did already about in Kansas City because I said if you are Big Jim's family, stop listening from this time episode.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god, we did, we did. I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. So if you remember that episode, that's when Baby M was was was conceived. So Baby M will make uh a little come around in December. So I'm about four months now. So I've been doing more like internal work than external work for Pride Month this year. But don't worry, girl, I'll come back big and strong next year. Yeah with my little ally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Or or not.

SPEAKER_02

Stop it.

SPEAKER_00

I told Ash that I'm gonna make the baby homophobic.

SPEAKER_02

And I said that's no. We have allies.

SPEAKER_00

I'm also baby mama number two because I was in the room when the baby was conceived. So I have say as well. Get shit on.

SPEAKER_02

It's so funny. Um, I had someone ask me if Big Jim experiences any like symptoms that I have, and I said, no, not really. Um, but the man who is also in the room when we were having sex has all of the symptoms I have.

SPEAKER_00

The amount of headaches that I've been getting crazy. I never get headaches.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then when you text me or like snap me during the day, and they're like, God, I have a headache, and I'm like, me fucking too.

SPEAKER_02

It's the pregnancy surge. We're getting a whole bunch of hormones, you and I.

SPEAKER_00

This is some bullshit. I'm not even pregnant.

SPEAKER_02

Jokes on you. Yes, you are. Bright out your butt in December. Get a bed right next to me.

SPEAKER_00

I want to make a joke, but I can.

SPEAKER_02

I mean you can. Oh, okay. So, because it's the end of pride, I kind of wanted to do an episode on why do we even celebrate pride? Right. So, if you're ready to chat and yap, let's talk about why pride is so important.

SPEAKER_00

Hell yeah, brother, let's get it.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, go for it.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know the mic, straight to the clinic, girl.

SPEAKER_02

Straight to the clinic is crazy. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00

Only one baby, not two. Not for me. Damn, double homicide.

SPEAKER_02

Damn double homicide. Today, pride is a massive global celebration filled with parades, rainbows, and corporate sponsorships. But why do we have it? And why is it in June? And why is the acronym structured the way that it is? We are stripping back the party layers to look at the protests, the history, and the profound legacy behind the core elements of pride. So gays. I love how you're like, and I'm like, ah, lazy. Queen. Queen. Queen. So do you know any queer history? Or are you just a nonchalant gay man?

SPEAKER_00

Nonchalant man. 100%. So girl, you know, you've been knowing this though.

SPEAKER_02

I know. But let me give you some gay history.

SPEAKER_00

Give it to me, girl.

SPEAKER_02

You know what Stonewall is? No. Stonewall riots? Okay, so the Stonewall riots was back in the 60s. Okay. Just picture this. It's New York City in 1960. 1969, to be specific. Okay. You are a gay man. You obviously love who you are. You want to try to change who you are. The only problem is that to be who you want to be, so to do anything that Brandon wants to do, it's illegal. Being a homosexual is very frowned upon to the point of being illegal, right? And so you love to drink, so you like to go to the bar, right? You and your man or your friends, King Neptune and Gouples, go to the bar. Here's the problem. You go to the bar, even though they go for it, you just raised your hand.

SPEAKER_00

I'm sorry. I did raise my hand. Um, so instead of King Neptune, um it's now Voldemort's nutsack.

SPEAKER_02

So we'll do that.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Good. Perfect. Go ahead. Anyways, so the nut sack.

SPEAKER_00

No, Voldemort's nutsack.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And Gopples.

SPEAKER_00

No, girl, you have to say it.

SPEAKER_02

Voldemort's nut sack.

SPEAKER_00

There you go. Continue.

SPEAKER_02

And Gobles.

SPEAKER_00

And Gubels.

SPEAKER_02

Well, she still has her cute name.

SPEAKER_00

That was actually her idea.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. So if you want to go to the bar, right. You can. The bear there are bars that do serve gay men and queer women or whatever. Right. But because it's so frowned upon, and let's say that the police gotta make the quota for the for the month or whatever, they could they'll go in and they raided these bars quite often. And they arrested transgender women, drag queens, butch lesbians, gay men for sexual lootering and and et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01

Christ.

SPEAKER_02

Fun fact though, of the mafia actually owned a lot of these bars that served the queer community. True. Because they could bribe the police to not go in as often as they could. And of course they could profit off of a community that was kind of segregated, migrated into each other.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And they that would love to drink. Which is why, you know, in the culture and gay culture, they love to party.

SPEAKER_00

Gays love to party.

SPEAKER_02

Gays love to party. Right. The mafia saw that firsthand and they said, we're gonna profit off that. But there is, you know, when that happens so often, every night, every weekend, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_02

You get to the point where you're like, I'm fucking done. Well, there was a night in June 28th, 1969. A routine raid at the Stonewall Inn, which was a bar in Greenwich Village in New York City, didn't go as planned. It was very brutal. It was not nice. Instead of just burying like what they normally would do, the the Patreons, so the people who would normally go there were led was a a group led largely by trans women of color, drag queens, and butch lesbians. So if you've heard the name like Marsha P. Johnson, mama, she was there. And Sylvia Riviera, Mama, she was there. She they they did the thing. Um they decided they have had enough. So that raid sparked like a six-day riot of police brutality, the queer community fighting back and fighting for their rights to be able to have what they want and to be able to do the things everyone else gets to do. This obviously was not the first LGBTQIA plus riot. So if you really want to look into it, you can look at Compton's cafeteria or the black cat riots. Those are other big riots that happened in the community around that time. In this particular moment, the Stonewall riots was the moment that it went from, I promise we're really quiet, we just want to be like you, to no fuck you guys, because we deserve the rights too. Sure. So it went from that to liberation. That's the stonewall riots. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So period. Pop your pussy.

SPEAKER_02

Pop your pussy girl. Pop your pussy. So yeah, that was a stonewall. Another thing that I was kind of looking at when I was like doing my research was, and I kind of always wondered this too. Why is the L before the G? Why do lesbians, you know, pop off lesbians, go off lesbians? But why does the L come before the G when it's known as the gay community? What? The scary?

SPEAKER_01

Skewy. Lesbians are scary.

SPEAKER_02

I feel like the the lesbian that scared you.

SPEAKER_00

Fuck ass ex-wife.

SPEAKER_02

It's my ex-wife. And that's that I mean that's valid. But not all lesbians look scary. He's looking at me weird. Okay. Okay, so do you know why the ill comes before the G?

SPEAKER_00

I don't actually know.

SPEAKER_02

You know, it happened in like the 70s and the 80s and the 90s in the gay community where like the AIDS epidemic. The AIDS epidemic. So in the 70s and the 80s, the community was more commonly referred to as just the gay community or the GLBT. It wasn't until the HIV and the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s happened.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so it's kind of like, you know, when COVID first came around and everyone was like so scared of what COVID could do, and people were scared of going to work and they were scared. We had a whole shutdown of shit.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I loved COVID.

SPEAKER_02

You loved COVID because you did you work during COVID?

SPEAKER_00

No. I okay, I did, but I worked maybe one day. But I was collecting like unemployment per se from the state.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Girl. I was getting I was getting twelve hundred dollars a week just to sit on my ass.

SPEAKER_02

I know it's insane because I was I was working in the medical field and then the in the veterinary field at the time. I was working two jobs. Both were deemed necessary. So I never got to stop working. My ex-wife at the time we were engaged and she got to stop working.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And was like sitting on her ass collecting like the I don't know if I don't think it was unemployment per se. I don't remember like I think it was like some kind of like COVID assistance or something like that.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know what the fuck it was. It was annoying as shit because it'd be like she wasn't working, and I'm over here working two jobs, and she's like, I'm like, just take chicken out for dinner when I get home, and then she'd fucking forget to do that, and I was like, You don't do anything all day, and you make more than what I make at both my jobs combined.

SPEAKER_00

That would piss me off. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So, anyways, I digress. Yeah, but you know how everyone was super scared of COVID, right? Right. So very similar to the AIDS epidemic. The only problem back then was people actually did refuse to to work with the gay community, refused to work with gay men. During COVID, if you were a nurse or an aide or whatever, you worked COVID. You didn't, it didn't matter what the consequence was. Back then, these poor men who were dying by the thousands had no one to care for them.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Except lesbians, pop off lesbians. So it was a whole generation of gay men dying and being ignored by the government and heavily stigmatized because of them being gay. That the lesbians stepped up and they became the primary care caretakers. They donated blood because this was also around the time that the American Red Cross banned gay men from donating blood, which is still valid to this day, which I think is fucking insane. Okay, because okay, because with the American Red Cross, I can go and give blood, or someone can go and get blood, and if it pops back with like a test, like you have gotarrhea, they would just call you and let you know, hey, we can't use your blood because you have an STD.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So, like, what's the difference with the gay men giving blood?

SPEAKER_00

Because HIV is it's it's an autoimmune deficiency. Like you can't, it's you can't just like take a pill and get rid of it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

I know, but that's what I'm saying though. How would they know that because you're a gay man, but I know we both know that you don't have HIV.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I see what you're saying now.

SPEAKER_02

You see what I'm saying? Like you can't give blood regardless. Regardless, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Ew. Yeah. Okay, never mind.

SPEAKER_02

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00

I thought you were saying because they they could have the potential to be to have HIV, but they were just saying because they were gay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Ew, okay, goodbye.

SPEAKER_02

And that's still the stigma to this day. They're like, oh, gay man can't give blood.

SPEAKER_00

I've given blood before.

SPEAKER_02

Have you really? Yeah. I thought that was still a thing.

SPEAKER_00

No, girl. I mean, I had to get tested.

SPEAKER_02

So they still have a blocker for you?

SPEAKER_00

But everybody gets tested before you can get blood.

SPEAKER_02

Then what was it that we were doing? Was it the plasma? You can't be gay, a gay man.

SPEAKER_00

You can't. So what defers you permanently is if you're taking um contracepts or like stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Like prep.

SPEAKER_00

Like prep, exactly. Yeah. They if you're taking prep, you can't you can't donate. Like you're deferred for life.

SPEAKER_02

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But prep is not like prep is just like their questions though are actually fucking insane. I know, because I remember they're meant to like trick you too. They're like, like, for example, like one of the questions is like have you had sexual relations with a man within the last three months or whatever. Yeah. Like shit like that. And it's like, why do you need to know that?

SPEAKER_02

Why do you need to know? Because it's a trigger to ask you other questions about your queer sexuality.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, they're gonna test your blood regardless.

SPEAKER_02

And that's kind of where I'm getting at. And but they uh around the time of the AIDS epidemic, they said, nope, no more. So the lesbians, again, became primary caretakers. They donated blood because a lot of people were scared to, they didn't want to. Right. Or, and then the gay men couldn't. The gay men who weren't affected by HIV and AIDS. True. So the Lebian lesbians, they said, take it. Lebians. Um, they also organized fundraisers and ran support groups for families and friends who have tragically lost their loved ones due to HIV and AIDS. So kind of where this is getting at is later on down the road, as a huge like quote unquote thank you for their solidarity, selflessness, and their leadership during the community's darkest hour, there was a petition made to officially kind of like in the late 80s, early 90s, to permanently move the L to the front. So instead of G L B T, it became L G B T. Right. And now today is known as L G B T Q I A plus Right Community.

SPEAKER_00

Cute.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, lesbians. You still scared?

SPEAKER_00

They still scare me.

SPEAKER_02

They would lesbians, they would help you.

SPEAKER_00

They would help you. I'd probably kill myself. That was just for the funny ha ha, funny hee hee. I'm just kidding, I'm not gonna do it. Nobody locked me up in the crazy bin. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

No, no. No 50-150 hold with the grippy sock vacation.

SPEAKER_00

Actually, you know what?

SPEAKER_02

Go ahead. It's a 48-hour hold. They just have you color and they ask you if you're okay like every 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, you know what? Actually, let's do it. I'd love some grippy socks.

SPEAKER_02

I have some in the bedroom if you want them.

SPEAKER_00

But I need the full experience.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I get that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No, that's fine. That's fun. And I get fed.

SPEAKER_02

You do. You get three square meals a day. It's like prison, but funner.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Actually, maybe not. Yeah. Yeah, girl.

SPEAKER_00

I'll think on it.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, you think on it. But probably. I had someone ask me one time, kind of going back, why, why, why June? Why in the middle of the summer? Why, you know, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I didn't know until you until you told me. Which is crazy. But it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02

But it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00

It's like a memorial or like a remembrance. Remembrance, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Of everything that the community has gone through. Yeah. So I had someone ask me why June? And so I was like, you know what? Why is it in June? Well, it's to commemorate the Stonewall riots again that happened on June 28th, 1969.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

The actual the very first pride that ever happened was June 28th, 1970, exactly one year after the riot started happening. Activist and quote unquote mother of pride, Brenda Howard organized it at the Christopher Street Liberation Day march in New York City. There were other pride marches happening at that time in LA and Chicago as well. Now, those happened and everyone's like, these queers. Well, former president Bill Clinton, get it, Clinton, uh, in 1999 declared the month of June as a federally recognized gay and lesbian pride month. So President Clinton made Pride Month happen. Cute. Right. Love that for him. Love it. Love him. He was, you know what? He was for it. He was for the girls, the gays. And the they's in the they's getting their d getting his dick sucked in the Oval Office. I love it for him. Quite literally. What a man. What a man. This was a really short episode. But it was kind of informational for people who listen to us and like rather you just like our content or you actually know us personally. Either way, Pride Month is very special to the both of us because it celebrates who we are. I was thinking about this the other day. Saw this TikTok that said that I would have been arrested in 65 different countries, and I would have been murdered in 12 of them for marrying my ex-wife and being with her for so long. Because that's how free we are here in America to be able to celebrate who we are.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Even though we do still face so many hardships, and our current orange bitch in the office makes it very hard to still try to do the things that we want to do. We are still liberated to this day. And a lot of this has to do with the sacrifices like Marsha P. Johnson and all of our queer brothers and sisters and non-binaries who paved the way for us today. So I just want to do a little celebration for myself, for Brandon, and for everyone in the LGBTQIA plus community to wrap up this Pride Mont.

SPEAKER_00

Cute. Gay.

SPEAKER_02

So with that said, I'm gonna throw some shade. Oh, so with that said, happy Pride Month to the men who can plan a brose day, but not a proper date for your girlfriends.

SPEAKER_00

Happy Pride Month to the straight men who want to be chased and do not do the chasing.

SPEAKER_02

Ooh, ting. Happy Pride Month to the men who post pictures of themselves on IG nodes and dances of themselves on TikTok. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Oh happy Pride Month to the serial cheaters and deeply raging homophobics. Me.

SPEAKER_02

And lastly, happy Pride Month to the women who stay with their bum ass baby daddies, work full-time, cook, clean, take care of the kids, and then still let their baby daddies sit and do nothing. Pop off lesbian, pop off lesbian, because you are dating a full ass bitch.

SPEAKER_00

Pop off lesbian is crazy. The what's your song of the week? What's okay, sorry. What's your song slash TV show of the week?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. So of course, into pride, I gotta listen to Rain on Me by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. I just dancing it in the clurve. When it hits in the clurve, it just hits so well. Oh who said that? Who said Queen? You said that, bitch. There's gonna be so many f anyways. And watching. Okay, so you won't know anything about this. Okay. You won't watch it either, so I know this.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

It's on Apple TV. You know Jason Momoa?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, he had a show that he put on called Chief of War.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

A lot of it is in like Polynesian and in like Hawaiian. Okay. That's obviously what his heritage is. And it tells a baseline true story of what they call the pale skins coming over into Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01

The pale skins.

SPEAKER_02

The pale skins girl. Introducing weapons and stuff like that. It's a true story. It's really good if you don't mind dialect, like having to read um subtitles on the screen. Oh, okay. There is some English a little bit, but it's primarily in Hawaiian. Oh. It's really good though. Okay. Yeah. What about you, girl?

SPEAKER_00

Oh. Are you gonna say it?

SPEAKER_02

No, it's not like you say it.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Um lately I've been on my scissors shit.

SPEAKER_01

Cute.

SPEAKER_00

Um A lot of the weekend. You know, my go-to song. Because I love that bitch.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Love you, Solana.

SPEAKER_02

Love you, Solana.

SPEAKER_00

Yo, fat ass, and then big old Titty.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, girl.

SPEAKER_00

Titty, Taddy, Titty. Um, another show besides Heated Rivalry. I just started watching Welcome to Dairy.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that was a good one when it came out. Yeah, that was good.

SPEAKER_00

I just started watching it. Mama.

SPEAKER_02

Girl, fucks you up.

SPEAKER_00

It's crazy as fuck. Yeah. I I've only watched two episodes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And there's I think there's two seasons now.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, is there really?

SPEAKER_00

I think so.

SPEAKER_02

I thought it was just the one. I'll have to go and look.

SPEAKER_00

I'm pretty sure. Oh.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know, but it's kind of more so like the actual book of Stephen King. It's a lot of what that is in that show.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's not like it's not based on like the movies that they've done. No, not at all. No.

SPEAKER_02

It's the deep lore of it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00

It's good as fuck, though. Like so far, it's good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm excited to watch it more.

SPEAKER_02

Fierce. Fierce. I'm glad. I love that. Well, I think this was a very successful Pride Month. We will be out next week. Next week is the 4th of July. We're gonna be soaking up the sun. Brandon will probably be drunk. I will be in a pool like a whale, big and pregnant, somewhere at some pool.

SPEAKER_00

So how do you know I'm gonna be drunk?

SPEAKER_02

It's like you asking me if I know that the sky is blue. Oh. The answer is always yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yes. Well yes.

SPEAKER_02

Well yes. Well, yes. So after the fourth, we will be back. It'll be what I think we said the week of the 11th.

SPEAKER_00

The 11th, yeah. The 11th.

SPEAKER_02

Then we be back.

SPEAKER_00

We back. Happy Pride Committee gang. I'm Brandon.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm Ashley. And this is Committee Technically. Okay, bye.