Opportunists of the cause? In the ‘LGBTQIA+ Pride Month’, community members talk about the appropriation of the cause by interest

Priscilla Peixoto – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The arrival of the month of June brings the season focused on the visibility of the LGBTQIA+ population, more precisely on the 28th, when the International LGBT Pride Day is celebrated. During this period, it is common to see large companies and brands adhering to the colors that represent the community, changing visual identities and declaring themselves allied to the cause. In an interview to CENARIUM, members of the movement talk about the subject and mention the opportunism of those who include themselves in the agenda only during the “Pride Month”.

“During the ‘pride’ month, many brands create more humanized advertisements and are sensitive to the LGBT cause, even to be able to have a connection with the public, but it’s time to do more because only advertising in the month of June doesn’t help and doesn’t stick for us anymore,” declares event producer Loren Luniere.

At 43 years old and openly lesbian, the professional dedicated to cultural mobilizations and entertainment is attentive to the support beyond the marketing in social networks. “We want companies to care about our lives, to invest and support events and mobilizations for the cause, for these people and lives. I hope that next year more brands can truly be with us,” considers Loren.

‘LGBTQIA+ visibility on top of the agenda’

The elderly caregiver Melissa Castro, 33, points out that, usually, organizations use not only the June period, but also the month of May, the period in which the fight against LGBTphobia is celebrated. Consecutive months that engage visibility over the issue, but, on the other hand, do not invest in diversity and inclusion.

“I notice that several companies take advantage of the engagement and amplitude that the cause brings. The months of May and June are the ideal time to take advantage of this issue, but this is very harmful to us, since many companies don’t even worry about how to treat these people, which terms are correct. We are a population that has our specificities, just like all the others. The social name, for example, is something important for us, but rectification is something time-consuming and expensive, not all of them can afford it, and there are companies that don’t even respect that”, the transsexual confesses.

Feeling it on the skin

Dedicated to caring for others, Melissa says she has experienced situations of prejudice within a health unit that claimed to be “welcoming”. According to the social caregiver, discrimination still stands out in front of the discourse of welcoming plurality and equal rights.

“In the hospital I went through situations that I started to realize, every time they needed me I was there, ready to do something that I wasn’t supposed to do. One day, I saw that other people were hired to do the same job that, in all modesty, I did very well. In other words, ‘I like you, but when it’s time to hire someone else, I call someone else,’ you know? It is a way to exclude us from the spaces and then use our issues for their own benefit. But people will have to get used to seeing us in all the spaces that also belong to us, like any citizen”, she points out.

‘Pink Money’ and promises to LGBTQIA+ people

Karen Arruda, 33, president of Casa Miga, a shelter for refugees and LGBT people, cites the so-called “pink money” (a name that refers to the purchasing power, the market power, that part of the LGBTQIA+ population holds). In 2020, the “pink money” moved an average of R$450 million in Brazil alone. The data are from a research developed by the Brazilian Institute for Sexual Diversity (IBDSEX).

Although the term is, a priori, something positive, it is seen with restrictions by activist movements because of business strategies that take advantage of a certain public, without necessarily adopting or promoting a change of attitude and positive actions.

For Karen, it is extremely healthy that brands and companies raise the flag, promote the cause, but in a truthful way, which usually does not happen. “Unfortunately, this is something very common; we, from Casa Amiga, experience this a lot. Companies come to us, promise us the world, use our guidelines, and then don’t fulfill 1% of what they committed to, ruining dreams, shattering the psychological and messing with the hope of our beneficiaries. This is why we have become more discerning in the face of this reality,” says Karen.

Appropriation of capitalism

In the reading of the member of the LGBTQIA+ movement, psychologist and doctor in education Adan Renê Silva, this behavior is the direct result of the capitalist system in which society lives. For the professional, capitalism has the power to appropriate all agendas aiming at profit generation.

“It appropriates environmental issues, promising that it will preserve forests, it approaches feminism and then generates the ‘liberal feminism’, which is the one of women on top; it also appropriates racism issues, aiming to exacerbate profit as a big ‘tractor’ passing to appropriate ideologies, the same happens with LGBTQIA+,” explains Adan.

“Political reading of the process”

Author of the multidisciplinary book entitled “Gender, Sexuality and Education: perspectives, citizenship and knowledges for the inclusion of diversity“, Adan warns of the need for education training and critical sense so that the LGBTQIA+ community is not co-opted by shallow discourses and forget that it is in practice that companies and people demonstrate, in fact, whether they are allies or not.

“It doesn’t scare me that companies want to pass that image, because they actually want to maximize profits. What scares me is the naivety of part of the community that doesn’t have this political reading of the process and ends up buying into it. A simple example is when you see a certain department store selling colored allusion shirts in support of the cause, and when it gets close to the elections they support a certain candidate who is totally against the community, that is, it doesn’t match”. ponders Adan.