As a rule, straight men confident in their sexuality generally don’t feel a need to proclaim their heterosexuality loud for all to hear.

Over the weekend, in my home state of Massachusetts, a so-called “Straight Pride Parade” was held in Boston. A few hundred, quickly outnumbered by counter-protesters, gathered to celebrate heterosexuality or something, and a look at those who attended revealed just how unserious this event was.

These two men traveled for 8 hours from Pennsylvania to Boston Straight Pride to represent the banned reddit subreddit /r/frenworld one is holding a pillow of Youtuber Sargon of Akkad pic.twitter.com/1i6HT8W8i1 — Sam Bishop (@sebishop99) August 31, 2019

“Straight Lives Matter” and “its great to be straight” say some early arrivals at the #StraightPrideParade.



Follow this thread today to get live coverage. If I am not posting here, it’s probably because I’m live at https://t.co/j6I8lNTpRc.



Support me: https://t.co/6zMTZ3bFhh pic.twitter.com/1bEH5AcUdu — Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 31, 2019

every single #StraightPrideParade attendee looked like *exactly* who i would expect to attend a “straight pride parade” — Jordan Lancaster (@jordylancaster) September 1, 2019

It was a freak show, frankly, of people (mostly men) who look more like incels than proud heterosexuals. The supposed “straight pride” event was bizarrely led by disgraced gay alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. According to the Washington Examiner, he defended his decision to headline the event, saying , “I’ve spent my entire career advocating for the rights of America’s most brutally repressed identity — straight people.”

This is the same Yiannopoulos whose career ended after he basically defended pedophilia. He has now resorted to auctioning off his possessions on Instagram to pay off his debts.

So yes, this event isn’t actually serious. But the general notion behind “straight pride” is something that many reasonable people might, at first glance, support.

But there’s no history of oppression, violence, or stigma against heterosexuality. Straight couples walking down the street never feel uncomfortable, and they’ve never faced barriers to marriage or adoption based on their sexuality. Straight people certainly have nothing to be ashamed of with their heterosexuality, but there’s no reason to beat their chest about it, either.

Likewise, gay pride isn’t about being proud of homosexuality itself — in the abstract, same-sex attraction isn’t commendable or noteworthy — but rather about being proud of overcoming the obstacles that many gay people have faced and still face.

In short, straight people don’t need their own pride rally.