June is National Pride Month, a month dedicated to recognizing the fight for equality for those among the LBGTQ+ community. It is a fight that has continued to be at the front for not only those individuals, but also for women of all races and ethnicities; for African Americans; for Asian Americans and many others.
Perhaps the most discouraging part of the struggle to end discrimination is that so often what begins as an earnest show of support for and solidarity with marginalized groups in society eventually becomes little more than meaningless commercialism. Let’s take a look at our marketing plans for June: Did we change our business profile pic to a rainbow on all our social media and post our support despite never mentioning the LGBTQ+ community any other time of the year? Check. Did we put out merchandise promoting Pride that we will quickly pack up on July 1? Check. Did we offer a Pride section in our store for everybody to see while also being a major sponsor of an event held in an anti-LBGTQ+ country and see nothing wrong with that? Check. (See Alex Abad-Santos’ article “How LGBTQ+ Pride Month Became a Branded Holiday” at https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17476850/pride-month-lgbtq-corporate-explained.)
Newsflash: if you have to put Pride on your marketing plan, you’re doing it wrong. If you say you support the LGBTQ+ community but also spend a fortune in countries that are known for refusing rights to the same community, you’re doing it wrong. If the rainbow flag only flies in your window one month of the year, you’re doing it wrong. You either support this community, or you don’t – there is no gray area.
There are a lot of similarities between issues faced in the LGBTQ+ community and those faced by individuals suffering from mental illness. Both groups have faced discrimination, resentment and a general lack of understanding at work and continue to fight for equality. Both have been “blamed for the way they are” by people who don’t understand and so on. And the two are also interrelated.
“We now have decades of research showing that when people are chronically treated differently, unfairly or badly, it can have effects ranging from low self-esteem to a higher risk for developing stress-related disorders such as anxiety and depression,” says Vickie Mays, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor in the department of health policy and management (as quoted by Dan Gordon in his article “Discrimination can be harmful to your mental health”). Clearly the discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community can cause an increase in mental health issues experienced by that community.
However, at the same time, there are differences in these movements. Businesses didn’t change their profile pics to support Mental Health Month in May. They aren’t creating mental health sections in their stores. Why? Some might say it is a lack of support; however, it seems more like a lack of commercialism. Mental health lacks the commercialism that we see with Pride. It lacks the commercialism that we see with Black Lives Matter and that we see with a lot of other movements geared towards equality.
Is this a lack of support for mental health…or is it a show of support? Is it possible there is a cause that while still misunderstood and not recognized to the extent that it should be, is also taken so seriously that society cannot justify commercializing it? And if that is the case, then maybe we should take a long, hard look at Pride Month and acknowledge that we are, in fact, doing a disservice to those in this marginalized community.
It’s time to stop making Pride Month about social media and to stop making Pride Month about buying something and to start making Pride Month about people. Maybe that is the fundamental difference between these two movements – the mental health awareness movement is about people. We’ve made Pride awareness about a rainbow flag. Until we understand what we are doing wrong with Pride Month, it will never matter how much support mental health gets because the problems will continue to increase. Mental health issues and discrimination are not always mutually exclusive — you can’t support the alleviation of one without working to stop the other. It’s time to end discrimination.
