BlufBear

In a recent Daily Mail column, fitness personality Jillian Michaels lamented that Pride has been “hijacked” by “leather daddies, drag shows and corporate agendas.” Speaking “as a gay woman,” she paints a picture of a movement adrift, corrupted by subcultures and spectacle. It’s an argument that, on its surface, might resonate with those yearning for a more palatable, family-friendly Pride. But scratch even lightly, and her framing collapses under the weight of selective memory, cultural sanitisation, and a willingness to weaponise identity for the sake of a manufactured culture war.

Let’s start with the historical amnesia. The groups Michaels singles out, leather men and drag queens, weren’t latecomers or fringe additions to Pride. They were its originators, defenders, and most visible casualties in the early struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. The Stonewall uprising was not led by polite, middle-class assimilationists. It was sparked by trans women, queens, sex workers, and those whose lives and bodies defied society’s narrow definitions of acceptability. Leather subcultures, in particular, emerged in the post-war era not simply as erotic preference, but as a bold reclamation of masculinity in a world that punished effeminacy and queerness with violence.

The suggestion that Pride has strayed too far from its original mission by including these expressions not only misrepresents history. It distorts the present. Pride was never meant to be easy to digest. It was designed to confront, to provoke, and, yes, to celebrate the diverse and sometimes unruly realities of queer life. It is precisely because of drag performers, kink communities, radical lesbians, and gender nonconformists that younger generations can now grow up with even a semblance of freedom. Their presence is not a hijack. It is inheritance.

What’s more concerning than Michaels’ discomfort is the context in which it’s being aired. Her column functions less as an internal community critique and more as a carefully aimed volley in a broader culture war. It taps into the same reactionary talking points used by right-wing media to discredit queer visibility: that it’s “too much,” “too sexual,” or somehow “dangerous” to children. These are not new tactics. “What about the children?” has been the rhetorical weapon of choice for those seeking to suppress LGBTQ+ lives for decades, from Section 28 to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. It is never really about protecting children. It is about controlling narratives and enforcing conformity.

The truth is, children are not harmed by seeing leather harnesses or sequins or queer affection. They are harmed by shame, censorship, and the notion that there is a “right” way to be gay, as long as it doesn’t offend the straight gaze. Pride is not a grooming ground. It is an invitation to see the full spectrum of human expression. Shielding children from that teaches them to be afraid of difference, and ashamed of themselves if they one day find they don’t fit the mould.

Michaels’ discomfort with visible queerness is understandable. Many LGBTQ+ people have internalised the idea that to be accepted, we must appear respectable. But Pride was never built on respectability. It was built on resistance. And it remains vital precisely because it refuses to apologise for the messiness, the joy, the flamboyance and the fury that queer life can encompass.

No movement is above critique. But let us be clear: Pride has not been hijacked. It is not broken. It is working exactly as it should, making space for those who have always been on the margins, refusing to shrink itself to fit mainstream comfort.

If that feels confronting, good. That’s the point.