It’s June. Prepare for the Superpowers of Pride.

DEEP in the Dark Ages, which sort of only began to end about eight years ago, LGBTQ+ people like me had to develop a superpower: invisibility. Such hypernatural abilities are more curse than gift, as Marvelverse fans know. With invisibility came a modicum of security and a sense of presence, but your existence — and its significance — remained shadowy, a secret identity.

That’s changed for the better, much thanks to the marriage equality that arrived in the US in 2015. The economic powers afforded by domesticity and mainstreaming benefit even the unmarried among us. We are now a global consumer phenomenon — our wallets marked with clearly identified letters: LGBTQ+ spending.

It is at the heart of the month of June — a celebration simply called Pride in much of the world — an annual rainbow of marketing that’s almost as glittery, pecuniary, and pushy as Christmas. Attention gay shoppers: We’re here for you and we’re open the rest of the year, too. Plus parades! “The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won’t shut up,” as the late Canadian novelist Robertson Davies supposedly said.

Of course, the noise you hear isn’t all sales-pitching. As much as we’ve moved mainstream, we haven’t stopped being controversial. The arrival of June not only heightens commercial attention, but raises the hackles of what I’ll politely call the pro-closet community.

Last week, members of that group were incensed to discover that Chick-fil-A — which has as its corporate purpose, “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us” — had named a vice-president for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Never mind that the appointment was made in 2020 and that Erick McReynolds is a company veteran.

Since 2019, Chick-fil-A has been trying to recalibrate its religiously righteous reputation: It ended donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — groups targeted by LGBTQ+ activists who promoted a boycott of the chicken sandwich chain. Now, the pro-closet crowd is proposing its own boycott of Chick-fil-A. Meanwhile, gays remain skeptical of the company’s sincerity. After all, the diversity page on its website still clings to the old faithful stewardship.

Anti-LGBTQ+ boycotters have also been yelling at Target Corp., falsely claiming the retailer was marketing “tuck friendly” swimsuits (designed for trans women who have not undergone reassignment surgery) to kids.

And there’s been crying over spilt beer. In April, trans TikTok mega-influencer Dylan Mulvaney marked the first anniversary of her “Days of Girlhood” gender transition with a brief video featuring a one-of-a-kind can of Bud Light with her face on it (part of a $15,000 giveaway backed by the lager’s brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev SA). The anti-woke response was irrational and violent: Conservative trans woman Caitlyn Jenner condemned Mulvaney and Bud Light; and rapper Kid Rock tastelessly took an automatic weapon to cases of the beer. Anheuser-Busch tried to step gingerly away from it all — but everyone’s noticed. Bud Light sales plummeted.

When the noise levels rise in June, we must push back and push forward. (And by “we” I’m including all of you who are our friends.) For all the parades and boosts to self-esteem, this month is a reminder of what being out costs and what it can deliver.

There are two important dates. First, June 28, 1969 — the Stonewall rebellion, started not by privileged white gay men secure in private cocktail lounges but by trans people in a dingy bar in Greenwich Village in New York who were being harassed by the cops. Their anger and energy would unite an inchoate, disparate group and transform it into a movement that would survive repression, ostracism, violence, and plague to reach the second date that makes this month so historic.

On June 26, 2015, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy of the US Supreme Court wrote this for the majority:

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

I’m not proposing anything new in this column, just reiterating that — like people who say “Merry Christmas” in December — we too have a confession of faith to repeat in June: “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” And, oh yes, that new superpower: We’re buying.

BLOOMBERG OPINION