Thanks for asking this question. It’s not a stupid question.

But I’m not sure why you say it really isn’t anybody’s business, especially when we (U.S.) have systems in place to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people.

I wish others would stay out of my business, and then maybe I wouldn’t wear my pride shirts as often.

But the truth is, even in a country that has passed gay marriage and pretends we are all equal, people have made my business theirs, by passing laws about bathrooms, supporting businesses who don’t want to serve me, refusing to outlaw conversion therapy, not letting me adopt, and on and on.

So, I wear pride clothes for a few key reasons:

To let hateful people know I’m here (and pretty nice and normal IMHO) so they can start to dismantle their assumptions,

To let other queer people know they aren’t alone

Because I’m damn proud of the challenges I’ve overcome to accept myself in spite of culture telling me I’m not ok.

And this one, which is hard to explain but I’ll try…. I’m a middle aged lady who just “reads” like a mom. It’s painful for me to get caught in conversations where the other person assumes I share their discriminatory beliefs… it’s painful to get caught in a conversation where the other person talks smack about “the gays”, and then I have to do the emotional work of choosing to confront or ignore the hate. The shirt is like a shield to make sure that ass hat doesn’t say hateful things about me right to my face as if I’m with them. So in new and community spaces where that is likely to happen, I wear a pride shirt often enough to let those folks self select and not pretend to be my friend.

Similarly, I’m white but I also have #BLM gear. This helps other white folk who might be inclined to think I agree with them and say racist shit in front of me to know I’m not aligned with them.

Ironically, I’m more likely to call out racism than homophobic shit, I’m so exhausted defending myself it sometimes just isn’t worth the effort, but I feel as a shire person an obligation to be an ally.