This is Hear Me Out. I'm Celeste Hedley. The first Pride was a protest, but is queer

liberation inherently anti-government? You'll hear a lot of discussion about that dynamic this

month as Pride Month festivities take place in cities

across the country. When a political figure like Jill Biden takes the stage at a Pride event, some people

feel supported. When Pride attendees see police, some of them feel safer.

But a lot of queer people feel like their presence is a hostile incursion into a community

that was and is at odds with the government.

So should pride actually be for everyone,

or everyone other than cops and politicians?

As a sex worker in this community who also considers myself to be queer and part of the LGBTQ community,

I do not have trust in the government to have LGBTQ and sex worker and other people with marginalized sexual

and gender identity's best interest at heart or to be interested in

protecting them. Jesse Sage, a Pittsburgh-based writer, joins Hear Me Out in just a moment.

Stay with us. Welcome back to Hear Me Out. I'm Celeste Hedley. As we celebrate Pride Month,

let's recall last year's celebration that was marked by a weird squabble over light beer. Bud Light

collaborated with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a social media post and

many on the conservative right responded with hysteria, overwrought think pieces, and an

unsurprising boycott. Perhaps all you remember about that is Kid Rock opening fire on a case of Bud Light that he probably paid for, but the boycott was pretty successful.

The Harvard Business Review found that Bud Light sales declined by about 30% for eight months

after the onset of that controversy. Now around this time

last year we talked on the show about rainbow washing and whether corporations

actually accomplish anything for anybody when they throw their support

...