Opinion: We Don't Need Any More Cishetero Visibility—And It's Time Someone Said It

A recent social media exchange has brought back the arguments that "Pride isn't needed" and that it is somehow "too much" and "shoving it down our throats" again. This inspired the following satire. I am considering a series of satires for Pride Month, each highlighting an absurdity we so often deal with. Have a suggestion? Reach out to me on twitter, bluesky, or mastodon or in the comments below and let me know - I will do my best! Also: Happy Pride!

By J. Q. Public, Co-Founder, Rainbow Defense Alliance

I need to say something that I think many of us are thinking but are afraid to voice: I cannot handle any more cishetero visibility. I cannot. I opened my phone this morning and the logos have changed again. Apps I use every day, coffee apps, streaming apps, shopping apps, all decked out in boring cishetero colors. Not for a month. They did this last month too. They will do it next month. For the next 11 months. It is near constant. My timeline is flooded with companies announcing their "support" for cishetero relationships that they constantly try to brand as "normal." Advertisements for engagement rings, for weddings, for romantic vacations. All depicting cishetero, all the time.

And look, I have a straight brother-in-law. I have worked with loads of breeders, some that were pregnant, some that adopted. I don't begrudge them who they love. I support the community. I respect their choices. Who they love. All of it. Genuinely. But why does it have to involve what I see day in and day out? Why must every cishetero milestone become public property? Why for 11 months of the year must it be all straight pride, all the time?

You have Valentine's Day. You have Christmas. You have every wedding announcement, every engagement video, every baby shower. And that is still not enough - you need the logos to change too? You need the companies to advertise and show support as though it were normal? You need your straightness broadcast across every platform, every month, constantly?

When a popular straight couple gets engaged and suddenly it is a production. A video. Filmed. Posted. Applauded. Why do they need a gold star? Is that what this is about? Do cishetero people simply require constant validation for the fact that they are attracted to the opposite sex? Because from where I am standing, that is what it looks like. A never-ending parade of proposals and announcements and baby showers and anniversaries - entire parties dedicated to celebrating the reproductive and lifestyle choices of cishetero people. A man asks a woman to marry him and it goes viral. They both receive congratulations from strangers. Their wedding photos circulate for weeks. Wedding announcements in the paper. Registry gifts. Showers. An entire infrastructure of celebration built around cishetero relationships.

And then they act surprised when we ask: why? Why does every cishetero person feel the need to broadcast their straightness? Why must the logos change? Why do the companies have to participate? Why can't cishetero people simply be without making it everyone else's constant, unavoidable problem?

I will tell you why: because cishetero people have weaponized visibility. They have made straightness the assumed normal in every space. Every movie, every television show, every advertisement reflects cishetero relationships as the default. This is not coincidence. This is strategy. Cishetero relationships are normalized everywhere, constantly, without question. And that normalization is so complete that cishetero people do not even recognize it as visibility. It just is.

And the thing that really gets me is the entitlement of it. Cishetero people have everything. Every holiday is built around their relationships. Every institution, every assumption, every cultural narrative centers them. And it is still not enough. They need the logos. They need the companies. They need their visibility constant and unrelenting and celebrated in advertisements, news, media, movies, television, books, even children's shows!

When the rest of the world dares to recognize how actual normal couples live and celebrate their heritage and traditions, many of which are no different that these straight folks, suddenly it is oppression! They decry how awful it is to see some colorful logos, to see a parade and some rainbows! We have to put up with them shoving their straight lifestyle down our throats for the whole year and we have to grin and accept it lest we are branded a bigot, but we can't have just a brief few weeks? The rank hypocrisy is laughable, if it were not so exhausting.

So here is what I am asking: can you simply exist without forcing it into every space? Without making your straightness everyone's business? Nobody is asking you to hide. Nobody is asking you to disappear. We are simply exhausted. Genuinely, bone-tired exhausted. Can't you just keep it private and amongst yourselves? Or maybe just don't engage in those lifestyle choices to begin with? Be more....normal and like the rest of us? But stop expecting applause for it. Stop forcing it into our lives in every way you can imagine. Stop flooding the timelines. Stop acting as though cishetero people deserve visibility when your visibility is the entire infrastructure of society, and leave my corporate logos and advertisements alone, thank you very much. Be happy, be free to be yourself, and just live your lives. But for the love of all that is good, do it quietly and stop shoving it down our throats.