David Tennant’s pride and prejudice

As all non-bigoted readers will know, this is the holy and most ancient month of Pride. The time of year when – like our ancestors of yore – we bedeck our banks, supermarkets and public buildings with the latest variant of the rainbow flag. For a while now, the flag has kept coming with added details, such as circles, triangles, squares and other ways to provoke epilepsy, all because some people felt the old ‘inclusive’ flag was not inclusive enough.

So it had these extra bits added to celebrate everyone from gay men to asexuals and anything in between. In recent times, these in-betweeners have included ‘non-binary’ and ‘two-spirit’ people – two groups that are especially interesting since nobody had heard of the concepts until a few years ago, yet now we must accept that they too are anciently recognised groups. What the flag is meant to remind us is that nobody will be free until everyone who has just invented an identity can have that identity not merely affirmed, but celebrated by a flag flying from every building in the land.

There is another way of seeing all this of course. Which is to realise that it has gone far too far, that most of us are thoroughly bored of it, and that it would be a good thing if the whole shebang stopped. (Shebang, incidentally, is not another identity group.)

A couple of weeks ago a straight woman in America actually said ‘Happy Pride’ to me. I must admit it almost completely floored me. I was suddenly overcome by grief, regret and embarrassment. ‘You don’t have to say this,’ I wanted to say. ‘None of us really believe in it, apart from a few freaks with blue hair, plus all western corporations.