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Can someone steelman why “pride” is still necessary? Seems that you can be gay, bi or trans and it’s more than accepted - there’s a huge increase in kids claiming lgbt status so if there’s stigma it’s not apparent anymore. At what point does it make sense to call a moratorium for social movements that have lost their purpose? What are the “victory conditions” for what homophobia is considered no longer a major issue?
Because no country is a monoculture. Even if there's many places where gay, bi or trans people can live lives free of judgement or condemnation, there's still households or towns that have homophobic or transphobic cultures.
Put another way. It doesn't matter if, say, 70% of people in your country of 330 million are at least tolerant of LGBT people, if the people you live with or around happen to belong to the 30% that were intolerant. My friend group has several LGBT people who grew up in conservative Christian families and are now the black sheep of their extended family. They still deal with a lot of baggage because of it, even if they've found a loving community who accepts them for who they are.
There's also the fact that tolerance might only be surface level. I've heard trans people talk about trying to get jobs, and in many cases employers will just laugh in the face of a "boy with makeup and a dress" and refuse employment even in unskilled labor, regardless of whether that is blatantly illegal at the state level. It's not a universal experience, but I think there's many reasons why there's a stereotype of computer science having a lot of trans women, aside from the well-known autism connection to being trans. I think computer science is a "disembodied" enough profession that already probably has a higher tolerance for weirdos, and also happens to make large amounts of money that make expensive surgeries that might not be covered by insurance possible.
Perhaps this is part of the entire point, but there will always be households or towns that have homophobic or transphobic cultures (as well as those with the exact opposite ones, of course), which implies that Pride will always be necessary. If perfection is the standard, then it can never be met in any context, and so whatever movement manages to entrench itself as the dominant cause to celebrate is the one that manages to be celebrated forever. Which, again, might be part of the point you're making?
OP was asking for steelmanning of the current necessity of Pride. I can only speculate about the future of the holiday.
I'm sure that Pride has a very different feel and purpose post-Obergefell and post-Bostock, than it did in, say, the 70's or 80's. Like many holidays and traditions, if it sticks around, I'm sure there will be many different reasons given for its celebration over its lifetime.
I think it's entirely possible that attitudes towards LGBT people go the way of attitudes towards left-handed people. Is it possible that there are people in the United States today who suffer greatly because of their left-handedness? Sure. Is it widespread enough that anyone feels the need to start left-handed support groups? Surely not.
I think if LGBT acceptance/tolerance/intolerance/hate in a hypothetical society goes from something like 40/30/25/5 to 50/35/14.9/0.1, and if more things like Trump Pride 2020 happen, resulting in a bipartisan consensus around all LGBT issues, Pride might lose relevance and purpose with no out group to rally against. I think you're already seeing a certain kind of LGBT hipster who hates that police officers and Fortune 500 companies are at Pride.
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Agreed -- in my (certainly imperfect and second-hand) understanding, even if the Overall Culture is broadly opposed to LGBT discrimination, most of it occurs in local/familiar settings where the OC has little reach.
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