This article is taken from the July 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
July is the cruellest month. It marks the end of June, otherwise known as the hallowed month of Pride. But now that it’s over, there’s a risk that parading on all-fours down the High Street in a studded PVC bulldog costume with a rubber dildo between the teeth might not be considered normal.
How is it that we have reached the year 2025, and still there is only one month of the year in which the LGBTQIA+ community can feel safe? True, there remain a few rainbow zebra crossings here and there, without which gay people would have no way to traverse the road, but on the whole the Pride motif is mostly absent.
Personally, I don’t feel welcome in any shop, library, hospital ward or garden centre that is not festooned with Pride flags. It is a symbol of inclusion, a beacon that lets us know that we will not be shunned or spat upon or nibbled by bigots. It’s just as well I have my own chauffeur, as the lack of Pride-themed public transportation post-June would render me housebound.
I emailed the Imam to suggest painting the dome in Pride colors
I was also disappointed to see that even during Pride Month, many organisations this year forgot to put up their flags. At my local mosque, there wasn’t so much as a string of trans-positive bunting along the qibla wall. And not one of the female-identified congregants was wearing a rainbow-hued burqa. I understand that black is more slimming, but they really should make an effort.
I actually emailed the Imam about this to suggest painting the dome in the Pride colours and hiring a pansexual eunuch to sing “YMCA” from the top of the minaret. I further insisted that the prayer hall and toilet facilities should be gender neutral, and that drag queens should be exempt from having to take off their shoes. Unfortunately, my email must have gone into his junk folder as he didn’t get back to me. Microsoft is so Islamophobic.
It’s time to extend Pride to the full twelve months. It is outrageous that the queer community is expected to spend 91.67 per cent of the year dressing and behaving just like everybody else. If the UK government doesn’t enact this measure immediately, I’ll be moving to somewhere more progressive.
Possibly Los Angeles, if there’s any of it left.
