There is the Walmartized rainbow culture that you’re talking about and then there’s the meat and potatoes queer culture that is and will always be counterculture for as long as human reproduction remains sexually binary. There is still a substantial amount of “queerness” that you don’t see on TV.

Primary culture loves to pull from counterculture after the morsel has been thoroughly sanitized and monetized.

The thing is though, queerness is now “cool” so it’s not counter culture

Countercultures have always been "cool" - the rejection of the dominant culture is part of their cool factor. Some of the most memorable aspects of recent Western cultural history are counter-cultural: hippies, punks, slackers.

A counterculture isn't defined by whether or not it's considered cool, but by whether or not it is actively participated in and shared among the majority of people. Queer identities may have a lot of public support (and even that's debatable), but queerness is not part of most people's lives. Western societies are still cis- and heteronormative. Queer culture is an other, not the mainstream.

Non-obvious means the things that you dont understand and/or see.

You make it sound like a bad thing. I'm happy we don't throw people off buildings as often.

I don't know, I think it's much more complicated. On one hand Raytheon changes their rainbow to logo for pride month, on the other hand some states are trying to ban crossdressing or force crossdressing people to register as sex offenders. And the majority of youth who are homeless are homeless because their families kicked them out for being gay/trans.

> And the majority of youth who are homeless are homeless because their families kicked them out for being gay/trans.

People lie about anything they can get away with.

When only one side of the story is being heard, people claiming victimhood because of a singular external issue are almost always grossly misrepresenting the situation.

See also: "I got fired because my boss / my car / my dog / etc."

IDK, I don't think the majority of children who are homeless have much incentives to lie about being gay or trans. It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them. Homeless people are rarely looked for if they're murdered, so there's less incentive for you to claim to be gay/trans because it literally targets you for murder more than you already are as a homeless person.

In my experience, more often than not the "homeless" kids waving the gay flag are glossing over unrelated behavioral issues on their own part.

> It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them.

The idea that deceiving someone into having sex with you is considered "shocking" and not "rape" astounds me. You can't induce arousal in someone, lure them into a position of vulnerability and spring surprises on them in the dark-- unless you're trying to become a martyr and add to the body count.

We already had to outlaw "pozzing" since the gays couldn't be bothered to disclose minor things like positive HIV status to unsuspecting partners. Now we're supposed to be cool with "stealthing"/"surprise sex" from the trans? It seems there is a pathological dishonesty at play here.

The laws should be changed-- LGBTs should be held more accountable for deceiving others. Murder has never been an acceptable response to fraud, so that needs to change too. This is not an example of sympathetic behavior on either side. I don't understand why you even brought it up.

I don't think you understand what gay/trans panic defense is.

I think if you didn't know what a legal thing was, you could've googled it, instead of making up some crazy hypothetical. Sorry, I'm dipping from this convo.

There are peer reviewed studies on this subject and they confirm that trans people are significantly more likely to experience housing insecurity.

> even Raytheon changes their logo to a rainbow version

And you think weapon manufacturers are sincerely concerned about discrimination and human rights in general?

Mainstream culture has been co-opting countercultures since decades. There are even words like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing.

Music genres like punk, rock, rap etc have been watered down in the same way. And many other things.

That's the opposite of going mainstream.

I know they don't care about it. That's the point. They don't care about it but they do it, because it's socially expected that they do it, because it's mainstream. If being green was counterculture, greenwashing would have the opposite of the intended effect.

So co-opting something and making it truly mainstream is the same thing?

Then greenwhashing is real ecology?

As a corporation why would you co-opt something that the public in general isn't on board for? Ask several people on the street "Should companies be more green?" and they will mostly say yes, as that is a mainstream idea. If you wanted to be counter culture you could start a company that isn't green, "We pollute ten times what our competition does!", lots of people out in the culture would be very upset, they would protest, that's what being counter to the culture is like.