The Gay Coin No-one Takes Pride In

JUST when you thought the LGBTQ+ movement could not possibly become any more ubiquitous, the Royal Mint have created a gay coin for circulation.

The new 50p coin, featuring the gay pride flag and the transgender chevron, will be released later this year.

The coin means no-one in Britain will be able to trade without nodding to the alphabet movement.

The Christian baker may well refuse to create a gay cake, but will he refuse a gay coin? He might as well just pocket it.

In the UK you can’t cross the street without paying homage to the LGBTQ+ movement on rainbow crossings. Police show up in rainbow cars. And kids are taught rainbow ideology.

So why not a gay coin?

The only surprise is that it has taken the Royal Mint so long to get on board the LGBTQ+ train.

And no, that’s not a figure of speech. The UK’s rainbow train was launched in August 2020. Toot-toot.

It really is a case of ‘all aboard’, and no-one can avoid it. The flip side of the LGBTQ+ coin features Queen Elizabeth II, the traditional defender of the church.

The inconsistency seems not to have occurred to those at the Royal Mint.

Or maybe they just don’t care.

I suspect they are well aware of the contradiction and view the subversiveness as part of their genius. They are laughing at Christians and conservatives all the way to the bank, literally.

Naturally, the Royal Mint took great pride launching the gay coin in association with Pride UK to celebrate 50 years of Pride.

“We are proud to support Pride,” they tweeted.

As reward they will pride themselves on their enhanced ranking with Stonewall, a Pride charity that rates UK corporations according to their LGBTQ+ friendliness.

Clare Maclennan, director of commemorative coin at the Royal Mint, said the gay 50p coin represented her organisation’s “commitment to diversity and inclusion”.

A gay coin. It is literally tokenism.

Someone should ask Ms Maclennan why the Royal Mint did not produce a £1, or even a £2 coin.

Are gays worth only 50p?

Must gays wait another 50 years before they get a £50 note?

Clearly there is much inclusion and equity and awareness and diverse activism sort of stuff still to be done.

Ironically, some of the most outspoken critics of the gay coin were gays. The Royal Mint’s twitter feed was flooded by LGBs angry at having to share a coin with TQs and whoever the +s were.

This comment was typical …

“As a lesbian, I find this offensive. LGBs have been hijacked by TQ+ and we have no Pride at all at what is being done in our name. Stonewall push a misogynistic and homophobic ideology which seeks to remove safeguards for women and kids and to normalise paraphilias & fetishism.”

Another complained:

“As a gay man I find this offensive and abject pandering to queer and gender theory which has no place on our coins.”

Their advances spurned by homosexuals and lesbians, the Royal Mint didn’t get much transgendered love either.

“I guess the banning of trans conversion therapy is too much to ask for. We should be grateful for a colourful 50p,” complained one trans person.

Another wrote, sarcastically …

“Transphobia is over now, we have a 50p coin, see?!”

And then there was this …

“The Tories can take these coins and choke on them. They want to try and placate us with a coin when they aren't giving us a full ban on conversion therapy?”

So much tolerance.

Imagine having coins minted in your honour, and then complaining about how oppressed you are!

Alarmed that news of the gay coin was unleashing demons rather than unicorns, the  Royal Mint’s marketing team sought to placate the hordes on Twitter.

“Diversity and inclusion is absolutely integral to our organisation,” the Royal Mint assured LGBs who were complaining about TQs.

But not only that …

“We have created an internal network of diversity and inclusion champions and provide training for all staff to ensure our differences are supported and celebrated.”

Let the Royal Mint’s internal network of DIE champions sort out the internal contradictions of the LBGTQ+ community being celebrated on their coin.

Eventually the intern unlucky enough to have been assigned to the Royal Mint’s Twitter feed was reduced to answering complaints with:

“That’s a shame. We worked with @PrideInLondon to produce the coin and we’ll be making a donation to them at launch.”

The donation should probably be made with a regular, non-politicised coin. Just to be safe.