uo89997 – Be Proud to Be Straight (An Ode to Elliott Chambers)

“Maintaining a school community of tolerance includes the tolerance of such viewpoints, as expressed by ‘Straight Pride’.”

– Judge Donovan Frank

You’ve heard of Elliot Rodger, but have you heard of Elliot Chambers?

I don’t blame you if you haven’t; after all, his case occurred over 20 years ago.

According to a short 2002 article from The Telegraph, Elliott Chambers was a student from Minnesota who wore a shirt with the words “Straight Pride” on it “along with a drawing of a stick man and woman holding hands”.[1]

Apparently this was so controversial among homosexual students on campus that it made it’s way to court and a Judge ruled on it.

That judge’s name was Donovan Frank and here’s what he said:

“Maintaining a school community of tolerance includes the tolerance of such viewpoints, as expressed by ‘Straight Pride’.”

It is of my belief that, if feminists and sexual rights activists support gay pride, lesbian pride and transgender pride, they should also tolerate men who are proud to be straight; women who are proud to be feminine and men who are proud to be masculine.

No straight man or female should ever have to feel ashamed about their sexuality.

And yet there seems to be increasingly more straight shame everyday.

Straight Shame

“It really pressures me. I can’t help but feel like gay is the new straight and straight is the new gay. I feel that being gay is eventually going to become the new norm, and that being straight is going to be looked down upon. ‘Why are you straight? Aren’t you going to explore even just a little bit?’

Of course, I’m not saying, ‘Everyone should stay straight so that I won’t be pressured anymore.’ I’m sorry if it comes out that way. I’m happy that we’re in a time where everyone is more accepting and that everyone gets to express themselves. I just can’t help but feel ashamed that I’m sticking with my default setting instead of changing it.
 -u/jowi_kangaroo

Harry Styles, a “star with a largely young, female fan base”[2], has been accused of “queerbaiting”; the practice of posing as LGBTQ without actually ever claiming to be a part of the community.

When asked about his sexuality in a Rolling Stones interview, Styles danced around the question saying “It doesn’t matter, and it’s about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you’re checking”.

It almost feels like Harry Styles is ashamed to be straight.

This straight shame seems to be prevalent among today’s youth.

According to a Gallup poll between 2017 and 2020, the amount of openly LGBT people jumped from 4.5% to 5.6%.

The age group with the largest population of LGBT identifying people?

Gen-Z at 15.9%.

Gallup themselves explain this rise by saying “at a time when Americans are increasingly supportive of equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people, a growing percentage of Americans identify themselves as LGBT.” and predicting “with younger generations far more likely than older generations to consider themselves LGBT, that growth should continue.”[3]

Isn’t that interesting phrasing; “Consider themselves LGBT“?

What Gallup seems to be suggesting here is that straight-born men and women can be convinced into believing they are something else.

Interestingly, this straight shame, while certainly a problem for men, seems to be even more detrimental towards women.

As stated by Joe Carter, “The ubiquitous promotion by the mass media of bisexual female relationships has promoted the idea that such ‘experimentation’ is a natural part of growing up female.”

So while Harry Styles has threesomes with his fans, we incels can continue to lie down and rot, alone.

Unless, we start to develop a bit of …

Straight Pride

In 2019, a group of conservatives in Boston held an epic Straight Pride Parade with signs saying “It’s great to be straight”, “I am here to say, ‘I am straight, hear me roar!’” and “Straight lives matter!”; the whole thing was even grand marshalled by gay conservative Milo Yiannopoulos.

Turns out it wasn’t much of a blockbuster event in American history.

It drew in about a few hundred protestors and about a thousand counterprotesters.

But maybe next time things will be different.

After all, the message behind this protest was a good one; that straight people have been oppressed by recent feminist thought and that we should cherish all types of sexuality.

But do all sexualities cherish us?

In February of 2021, TikToker @kyleroyce posted a video claiming he had begun to identify as “super-straight” to make it clear that he would not date a transgender woman.

This was immediately condemned as transphobic.

But why?

Is it truly an offense for me, as a straight man, to only be attracted to biological females?

According to the youth, the answer is yes.

As an article from The Atlantic based on the Kyle Royce incident states “On multiple occasions, he was asked if he would date a trans woman. He was repeatedly told, upon responding no, that his answer was transphobic.”[4]

As @tblizzy, a TikToker with over 400,000 followers, states “Let me break this down: trans women are women. So if you’re a heterosexual man and you said you wouldn’t date a trans woman because it’s a preference, that’s just transphobia, period.

Um, actually no, not period. Attempting to control a straight man’s sexual preference sounds a lot more to me like “straight-phobia” than “trans-phobia”.

So, lets all be more like Elliott Chambers and celebrate our straightness.

Let’s all come out as “super-straight”.

440px-SuperStraightFlag.png

A proposed super-straight pride flag showing unity between the two genders masculine and feminine.