Fighting for Pride

Happy zoo pride week, dear readers! One of my favorite parts about this time of year is that every single time when I talk about zoo pride week, I get replies from people saying "wait, is that a thing??" It doesn't matter if it's on twitter, or even in zoo spaces like the ZDP Matrix server, there are always some people that simply don't know that this is a thing. And, the number of people that I see have that reaction seems to be growing every year! I take that as a good thing, honestly. It shows that more and more new people are dipping their toes into this fur filled water and checking out what the zoo community has to offer. 
 
Undoubtedly, I also get a bunch of messages from people that are less than eager to learn that we've taken a week and declared it a time of celebration for our cause. There's the typical anti-zoo folks who are always ready to post their Goku memes or whatever the kids are into nowadays in an effort to "own" the "zoos". But pride posts tend to bring out another demographic as well. And that's people that are against the idea of pride in general. 
 
These tend to be right wingers who will see a post about "pride" and then look no further before deciding that they want to make an angry reply about how terrible pride is. Sometimes they'll clue into the fact that we're being proud of something adjacent to but not totally apart from general LGBTQ pride, but often they don't, and they lump us in as this kind of amalgamation of things that they decree their anger at. 
 
I find it very interesting that these people take such a hard stance against pride. The word "pride" may be a sin in the context of sexualities, but if you stopped any of these people and asked them if they're proud of their kids, or proud of their job, or proud of their country, chances are they would probably say yes. So pride is a sin, but it's a permissible sin so long as it's one that's socially acceptable. It's wrong for LGBT folks and zoos to be proud, but it's okay for straight white men to be proud, because one is perceived to be more morally superior than the other. 
 
In this way, you can kinda look at pride like a microcosm of social acceptance to a topic in general. The more proud you're allowed to be of something, the more acceptable that thing is. And in fact, being proud of a good thing is seen as not just acceptable, but virtuous, where as being proud of a bad thing is seen as especially vile and sinful. For instance, if I coached a little league team, and they won their season, and I said that I was super proud of how hard all my players worked, that would be seen as something that reflects well on me. But if I instead said I was proud because I managed to shoot up on heroin three days in a row and then went to work the next day, that's somehow worse than just saying that I'm an addict. Because it's something I'm staking emotional value in, it's more reflective of my character, and therefore my support of the act is seen as more negative than the act itself. 
 
And so, to bring it back, because a right winger sees being gay as bad, and then people take pride in being gay, it exponentially makes the whole thing worse in their eyes. If you've ever heard someone say "I don't really care about all that gay stuff, but I wish they'd stop rubbing it in our faces", this is essentially what they're feeling. They're not really okay with the gay stuff, but perhaps they'd be willing to tolerate the existence of gay people without causing a fuss, but when it's incorporated with the element of being prideful publicly, then suddenly it's amplified as far as the emotional experience they have to it. 
 
That point of view, while better than someone screaming homophobic slurs in your face, is still not ok. Here's the thing about those kind of people. They might not necessarily be pushing for the end of gay marriage on the surface, they're like a domino, stacked up next to other dominoes, that are just waiting for a little push to topple them down. People like that are often people who are too worried about public perception to be honest about their feelings, but if there was a strong leader who came out and said "I want to round up the gays", chances are they wouldn't be the folks that are coming out to say no. If anything, they'd likely be more than willing to start turning on their queer neighbors. 
 
When you really get into the sociology of political movements, there's a lot of talks about the specific kinds of people out there that may or may not align themselves with your movement with the right kind of messaging. This guy that we're making up is a huge topic of conversation in all of those discussions. To a lot of political commentators on the left, this guy is like a mine in a game of minesweeper. You've gotta be careful about what squares you click because this guy has his couple of issues, and if you push to hard, he's going to explode. 
 
This is especially something seen specifically with trans folks in today's political climate. The "trans issue" is a big thing right now, and it's becoming so riddled with these guys that there are even some leftists that are recommending that we need to back away from the topic in general, lest we end up doing more damage with our pride than we help. Natalie Wynn, AKA Contrapoints was on a podcast I love called the Doom Scroll podcast with Joshua Citarella. He asked her about her stance on all of this, and she said this. 
 
"I personally think that at this point, like the Democratic party should not talk about trans people."
"...because so much of what the general public thinks the Democratic [Party] thinks about trans people is completely information that they've gotten from right-wing propaganda."
"The Democratic party already they hardly ever talk about trans people to begin with. ... People have like really been convinced what the left talks about by right media."
"Right-wing media they've also kind of mastered rage bait. ... 'Look at what's happening in your daughter's sports.' ... Is that true? Doesn't matter, makes people angry, gets attention. ... So, I think that you say that, you know, a lot of right-wing media says that and they say, 'This is what the Democrats are doing.' And it's like, how much are the Democrats talking about trans [people]? Basically, not at all. ... But the right has really succeeded in convincing the public that that's what the left talks about."
"I think deflection is kind of the answer."
 
I really like Contrapoints. I think she's smart, I watch all of her videos when they come out on Youtube. I've been following her for a long time. I'd definitely consider myself a fan. But, if we're to take her at face value here, and respect her intelligence as a thinker in this space, what do her comments say in response to the conversation around pride? Well, she's basically saying that for trans folks, we need to concede pride. It's too hot, and too polarizing, and so if the "left" as a whole ever wants to win, we need to stop talking about trans folks, and let the right dictate that conversation. 
 
There is a level of rationale to her comments. Especially considering her stance is more to deflect. When the right brings up trans to say "why are you talking about this, who gives a shit?" If you make it so that the right is the ones bringing up the trans issue and the left just throws up their hands and say why do you care about this, let's talk about something else, theoretically you could maybe try and frame a narrative around the fact that it's a big to do about nothing. 
 
But also, is that really the people that we want to be?
 
That's my issue with this strategy. When we say that we don't care about certain issues, and we're willing to take a back seat to all discussion on it because we're afraid that it'll be too controversial, we're saying that trans issues aren't as valid as others. Which, fair enough, some things are of more importance, others of less. But, I don't think it's okay for us to say that we need to leave a whole group of people that are so clearly aligned with our party to the wolves just because there are people out there that get mad about trans people existing, or god forbid being proud of themselves while trans. 
 
Sometimes in politics you do have to make concessions, that's totally fair. But I also think that what you choose to give up is a really important decision. Because every single issue the left has won came from not conceding, and instead forcing an issue. Slavery only stopped because people were willing to go to actual war. It'd be so much easier to get along with people on the right if we were willing to step back from our more radical talking points, I'm sure. But how many of our issues do we need to give up to make friends, and by the time we get there how can we be sure that we're really pushing for anything at all anymore? 
 
There's a lot that we can learn from this conversation when it comes to our own movement as well. Because we're not there yet, but at some point this same conversation is going to apply to us zoosexuals as well.
 
This article is just as much for the audience right now as it is for the audience in the future. At some point, zoosexuality is going to become a bigger conversation. At some point, we'll be in a position where we're starting to sway minds and make a real impact on the world. We're going to be in a place where we're able to go out on the streets and wave flags and kiss dogs and doing so will be seen as an act of pride. And there are going to be some people who see that and approve and applaud that pride. And there are going to be some people that see that and get angry. That decide to take an even firmer stance against zoos. That dig their heels in further and say that "animal fucking" is never going to be okay. There are even going to be other queer people who have this reaction, and claim that zoosexuality is hurting the queer movement in general. That incredible harm done is going to be to queer folks everywhere because we exist. 
 
There are already even other zoos who have this stance. Isolationist zoos who see the zoo community and any activism efforts as actively dangerous because it means that we'll be getting closer and closer to those mines. To people who may not otherwise care blowing up and actively fighting against us. 
 
This zoo pride week, here's what I want to ask of you. Take some time and really think about this. What does pride mean to you? What's the value of pride? Is our pride worth celebrating? Because right now the answer is easy. It's obviously a yes. We're a small community of people hated by so many others, and so our pride is like a little campfire we're all sitting around. But with more and more people that come and add to the fire, eventually it's going to be blazing. Is pride worth it if it makes people hate us more? Is pride worth it if it causes more people to be suspicious of the people around them of being zoos? Is pride worth it if it gives enemies of queer folks in general ammunition to shoot at them? If one day someone sees your pride message, and decides they're going to hang a zoo flag in their back yard because they're now proud as well, and then their neighbor sees it and beats the shit out of them, was it wrong of you to have pride? 
 
To me, the answer is yes. Unequivocally yes. Call me a dreamer, but I don't think that the right way to make the world a better place is ever to give up. Giving up on people isn't the answer. It just isn't. And to me, that's what pride is really about. It's taking the belief that we need to accept that things will only ever be the way they currently are, and saying no. We're going to keep moving. Keep going. Keep struggling. Keep fighting. Pride is a celebration, but it's also a movement. It's a movement of people who say that they refuse to give up. They see the man who's scared of pride and say "Fuck you." And I think that's amazing. Because yeah, fuck that guy honestly. 
 
This zoo pride week I'm taking the time to give my partner extra attention and extra love. But I'm also using it to remind myself of why I'm doing this. What I want to get out of my pride. And I'm turning that energy into motivation. This fight is so far from done, but I'm loud and proud and ready to start swinging. I have to be. 
 
Happy zoo pride week, dear readers. And we'll see you next week. 
 
 
 
 
Article written by Tarro (July 2026)
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