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Corporations publicly celebrating LGBT+ equality is a good thing and I am glad to see it coming back.

Baby queers with unsupportive families in small towns should know that they can grow up to be whatever they want to be, whether that’s a gender-abolitionist queer theory professor or a boring suburbanite with a middle management job at a Fortune 100 company.

This is the level of social acceptance I want for LGBT people:

Yes, of course McDonald’s posting about National Coming Out Day is “performative.” Nobody thinks Ronald McDonald threw the first brick at Stonewall. Nonetheless, the biggest and most influential institutions in American life performing affirmation of LGBT social and civil equality is a good thing.

Performative tolerance, in an era of performative intolerance, actually matters. Whether the folks performing mean it is secondary!

Holy shit, Max. This is A BAR. I need to sit down. For real, I’m literally reconsidering how I’ve always thought about this. I’ve always thought that if I couldn’t perfectly represent my beliefs/morals/principles, then I shouldn’t be publicly vocal about them. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.

Look, I am an environmental activist in a very small way, and I’m vocal about green issues. I also know that one of the best things for the planet would be for everyone to be vegan and I…am not. I don’t press people on this specific issue, but I’m aware I don’t live up to my green principles. 1/

I’d rather talk about environmental issues when the climate is such a disaster than let my own imperfections stop me saying anything. (But I also think telling people that “life is the art of the possible” is important so they don’t get overwhelmed by the need to be perfect or feel a failure.) /2

Signalling virtues is in fact an important social function.

It's safe on TT. Show me the commercial they show in the Midwest and Red States. The issue with performative is there is no actual substance. Target can pretend to care about minorities/LGBTQ but got their asses handed to them when they rolled back DEI policies. I am not interested in propaganda

If even 1 kid is inspired to come out because they see McDonald's posting "propaganda" then it's worth it.

If nothing else, it pressures bigots to feel marginalized. Which is good. Half of virtue is signalling. I think if someone signals support for virtue, and at least doesn't actively degrade the virtue they claim to espouse, then yeah, they do 'have' real virtue, it's just not grandiose.

You don't actually need to be anti-racist or actively anti-homophobic to be doing something positive. Yes, being merely non-bigoted isn't enough in aspirational terms, but it DOES do something.

The left expects too much or else insists on being unhappy. Yes, we should push people and corporations to do more! But speaking as an environmentalist, individuals recycling and cleaning up litter DOES make a difference. It IS helping.