[quote=@LuckyBlackCat]Ok, I'll admit I don't have that much experience with pride parades, I've only ever been to one (considering going to another this year though) and there wasn't anything blatantly sexual about it. That said, my girlfriend has been to several and she's disappointed with the way Pride has gone. There are people who just use it as an excuse to get drunk, so it seems like these parades have strayed from what they were supposed to be. They're not the only way of showing pride, though.[/quote]

Which is basically my issue with it. It'd be grand if they were used to show some form of pride for who you are but that's more often than not the case.

Also people don't take it seriously. Kinda hard to take it serious if it's just a bunch of people dancing around.

[quote=@LuckyBlackCat]Yes, gay and bisexual women still experience prejudice. The suicide graph is interesting, but read these articles about the LGBTQ+ community and mental health:

snipped the articles for length

Also, my girlfriend and I have experienced some forms of bigotry. We've had nasty, threatening things yelled at us. I know there are other people who have it much worse, but it's still not something we should have to put up with.[/quote]

Yeah, I know that mental disorders are more frequent in LGBT people but I think that's not just because of how people react to them but also due to how LGBT people are often afraid to come out. It kinda hypes up their feelings when in reality (in my country) nobody really cares.

As for having things yelled at you, well, I can't really speak on that. I just want to let you know that a lot of people get yelled at for varying things and it's just a fact of life.

[quote=@LuckyBlackCat]Being open doesn't mean I go around yelling about it at every opportunity. It's just something I'll mention if it's relevant to the conversation. For example, I was chatting with someone and I mentioned my girlfriend. The other person said, "Oh, so you're gay?" I replied, "I'm bi, actually."

This is the problem. She wouldn't have said, "Oh, so you're straight?" if I had a boyfriend. She didn't say it in a nasty way, she was just surprised, and this is the reason people are open about their sexuality. Society is heteronormative - people are assumed to be straight until proven otherwise, and there is a lot of bisexual erasure. We're sick of having that part of our identities questioned. Showing pride, whether it's by parading or in other ways, is a way of resisting heteronormativity.
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I'm... not sure what you expect. The majority of people is hetero. Therefore it's easiest (and often quite safe, actually) to assume someone is hetero. If they are not, then you say 'oh, okay' and that's the end of it.

Like I said before, I'm not sure how you expect people to be able to tell? Most homosexuals/bisexuals don't look different from hetero's. Do you want us to.. smell it?

I'm also not sure about how 'not knowing someones sexuality therefore assuming they are part of the majority' is somehow erasing anything. She didn't take away your identity. She didn't say 'no you can't be bisexual' or anything. She just didn't know and then you told her and she knew, nothing hostile happened because of it. How would that lead to bisexuals being erased?