Compartmentalize...

I love Disneyland. That's not a surprise to anyone that knows me. We go to the park every few years. At least once every five, sometimes as often as every other year. I collect Maleficent figures and a handful of Up! Carl and Ellie items. And some Beauty and the Beast things. Along with those I have a collection of straight up House of Mouse merch. Hidden Mickey shaped ornaments. Clothes. It's probably the biggest brand I have represented in my house.

I'm a fan. Some would say a really big fan. But we have friends who are bigger fans so I can always point to them and say I'm not THAT big of a fan. I'm not a fanatic.

But I am a fan.

Of Disneyland. The park. A handful of the characters. What it and they mean to me.

But... I'm not a fan of Disney the company.

Between the $15 million pay off to Trump, the pulling back of a trans storyline from a series they are doing, the corporate Pride but not if it gets too political, ethos, the elevating of people like Pat McAfee in their ESPN coverage, the addition of huge amounts of gambling content in their sports programming.

The company is not my favorite. And they are a behemoth so it's almost impossible to get away from them.

And a lot of it wraps back around to my feelings about corporate Pride as a whole.

Corporate Pride is capitalism, not allyship. It's merchandising masquerading as support. They'll take our dollars but will they have our backs? Generally the answer is no, no they won't. Now, that's not to say there aren't true allies in the corporate world. Or that there aren't companies out there actually walking that ally walk, there are. But corporate Pride is not that.

Target gave us all a lesson in corporate Pride the past two years. When they got push back on their Pride lines, when people literally got violent in their stores and trashed displays and harassed employees they chose to not stand up for the LGBTQIA+ community, they chose to hide their merchandise, or not carry it at all. That's corporate Pride. It's merchandise. It's the bottom line. It's risk vs. reward. And they don't consider standing with the community a reward. It's really shitty.

But on the other hand I believe that corporate Pride is important. I think any display of Pride merchandise is important. I think just a signal to other people that they aren't alone is important. Especially now. Now that we are in the last gasps of a dying patriarchy that wants to hold on with both hands. That's why we are seeing a rise in that white nationalism fever. Because it was fading. And because they know, deep in their cold soulless bodies, that it will fade. They just want to hold on to it for the rest of their lives. To push back where they can.

We saw it with homosexuality as a whole in the 90s. As people realized they did actually know gay people. After gay people saw how the government turned their back on the community during the AIDS crisis and realized that being in the closet was literally killing people. Community and visibility was needed. So out and proud. Out and loud. We're here, we're queer, get used to it. And a lot of people did. Which made a lot of other people freak out. And homophobia got really strong for awhile. Then it faded back.

Now it's the same, but with transphobia. And I mean the exact same. The same scare tactics. The same verbiage. The same trying to split the community. It's all the same playbook. It didn't work then, and I believe it won't work now. But it did last for a long time. It was horrible for a long stretch. It was ugly. And it didn't really go all the way away. There has always been a streak of homophobia that remained, and now it's being tacked on to the transphobia.

It's the same as racism, it's never gone away, it's just gone underground, and right now it's not underground anymore. Othering is a giant party and they are inviting everyone not to join.

So, what am I going to do?

I'm going to compartmentalize. At least until I can't anymore. I love Disneyland. I love what it represents to me. Growing up poor we didn't do vacations. We visited family in August, in Iowa, but a fun family vacation? No. There wasn't money for that. But...we went to Disneyland when I was 5. It was the year the North American Christian Convention was held in Anaheim. And when I was a teenager I went twice with our youth group. Once when we were on tour over the summer, and once when the North American Christian Convention was back in Anaheim.

When Brent and I lived in San Diego I went a few times. We could get cheap tickets on base. I took my nephew when he was 6. Katie's first Disney visit was en utero. We took her a couple times while she was growing up. Including one trip where she had no idea she was going until we were in line for security at the airport. We've been at every holiday. We've been at every season. We've stayed off park and on. We were there when California Adventure first opened. We were there when Downtown Disney first opened. We're OG Disney people.

It's important to me in a lot of ways. And for now I can section that off away from the company itself.

I don't know how long I'll be able to do that.

If I can't then the Goodwill store will have a giant Disney section of goods to sell and I'll have a lot of space in my house and in my Christmas decoration boxes.

But for now, I'll compartmentalize.

I hope they change before it stops working.