"Then we wonder they don't like us." Osmany Laffita, in an interview with CNN Prima News, again attacks the pride marches
The CNN Prima News website published an interview with fashion designer Osmani Laffita. At first glance, it's an unassuming lifestyle portrait: a successful career, a beautiful home, a long-standing relationship, a busy workload, a few stories from his life. Between the lines, however, a motif reappears that can no longer be considered a coincidence in Laffita's case - the repeated definition of himself in relation to his own community.
Laffita is openly gay, but at the same time has long opposed both pride marches and queer activism. In a recent interview, he says that "maybe it's not necessary for little boys or old men dressed as puppies to walk through the city centre" and that he is against public funding of the Prague Pride festival. On the face of it, this is a personal opinion that should have its place in a democratic debate. The problem is that the same pattern is being repeated here - the reduction of the entire community and the entire event to a few extreme images.
This is not a one-off statement. Already last summer, he posted a long Facebook status on Prague Pride, in which he said, among other things, "For 30 years we have been fighting to be accepted, to be integrated into society, and then we have this PRIDE that is as far from integration as it can be.' He asks what use we have of people 'in their underwear', likening Pride to a 'nude beach' and adding that 'the best bits keep their clothes on'. The bottom line is clear: "Then we wonder why heterosexuals don't like us."
This type of reasoning is painfully familiar to queer people. It's not an attempt to understand the internal contradictions of the community, but an old and time-tested principle: us decent versus them queer. Us trying to fit in. Them who are screwing up. We who act "normal". They who provoke.
Pride as a problem - or as a cover-up?
Laffita casts Pride as an obstacle to integration. As if it were a fad that thwarts thirty years of work. But Pride was never created to make queer people as invisible as possible. It was created precisely because "fitting in" often meant disappearing. Silence. To not stand out. To not say who you are out loud. And most importantly, be grateful that society tolerates you at all.
Pride isn't just a festival. It is a reminder that the rights we take for granted today were not won quietly and with our hands in our pockets. They were won through visibility, through discomfort, through the disruption of "decent order." Yes, sometimes colourfully, noisily, excessively. Just as it has historically worked in all emancipatory movements.
When Laffita says that "we fought for 30 years for integration" and that Pride is going against it, he is actually communicating: we already got what we wanted, now let's be nice. But the reality in the Czech Republic does not correspond to this. Marriage for all still does not exist. Trans people face humiliating conditions. Queer kids are afraid of coming out. And the hateful comments under every article about LGBT+ issues are a reminder that acceptance is not a done deal, but a fragile process.
Pride is not proof that "it's already done." It is proof that it is not done.
Caricature instead of reality
When Laffita talks about "little boys dressed up as puppies," it's not so much about Pride as it is about the way he chooses to see it. From a few peripheral images, she composes a caricature of the entire event - and by extension, the entire community. But Pride is not just a march. It's a week of debates, workshops, lectures, film screenings, cultural events, gatherings for parents of queer kids, and safe spaces for teens who are afraid to say a word about themselves at home.
But that part of reality doesn't fit into such statements. Latex, puppies and underwear are easier to work with. It's easier to build distance on them - I'm the "normal" gay, they're the ones who mess it up.
This is where we get to the heart of the problem. Laffita isn't just acting as a critic of a certain form of Pride. It creates a hierarchy within the community. I am acceptable. I am proof that "it's okay." You are the ones who are harming us.
It's convenient for society. It's destructive to queer people.
Who is responsible for the hate?
The most problematic moment in Laffite's statement comes when he says, "And then we wonder why straight people don't like us." Because that's when the responsibility for hate shifts from those who hate to those who are hated. It's as if the problem is not homophobia, but its "misrepresentation."
It is a logic we know from many other contexts:
"If women behaved more politely, they wouldn't be harassed."
"If Roma worked more, there would be no racism."
"If queer people weren't so visible, no one would mind."
But human rights are not a reward for good behavior. They're not contingent on how aesthetically acceptable you are to the majority. They are not the privilege of those who can fit in.
Queer people are not required to be slick to earn respect. They don't have to be presentable, decent, "normal." They don't have to be the "best bits". It's enough that they exist.
The paradox of the accepted gay man
It's a strange paradox that the very person who lives openly in a long-term relationship with a man, lives in a romantic observatory, appears on television, and benefits from relative social tolerance, uses rhetoric that undermines that tolerance. It's as if he's saying: I've done it before, so don't be angry now.
But not everyone has Laffite's position. Not everyone has the capital, the age, the reputation, the security. For many queer people - especially young people - Pride is one of the few places where they can experience for the first time that they are not alone. That their body, identity, and desires are not a mistake.
And that's why Pride exists. It's not to make everyone comfortable. But to be visible.
It might be worth asking again who's actually scaring who. If it's the people in latex at a parade that lasts one afternoon a year. Or rather, a world in which even a successful gay man fears rainbows more than homophobia.
