Jill is a journalist, academic, and the author of five books. She’s best known as the first woman to become executive editor at the New York Times, from 2011 to 2014. She’s currently a professor in the English department at Harvard. We’ve been friends forever.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of our convo — on whether women are better observational reporters, and looking back at the Supreme Court saga of “Long Dong Silver” — head over to our YouTube page.We have a new transcript posted for posterity: Jamie Kirchick on his new history of gay Washington, recorded in front of a live audience at Twenty Summers in Ptown. If you missed it, here’s a teaser:With Pride still marching along this month, a reader writes:You frequently cover the takeover of the gay rights movement by transgender ideology, and how that can be at odds with the sex-based rights our generation fought for. I want to share a glimpse that I got at another under-discussed appropriation of the movement that’s significantly less threatening, but still leaves me feeling a bit out in the cold as a gay man: Pride going mainstream.I live in a small Midwestern exurb that recently began hosting its own Pride parade. This is not a small event — the banners go up well before June and stick around much of the summer, and it draws a crowd on par with our largest town festivals. I’ve generally avoided it, assuming it would be chock full of pink-and-blue flags and wanting to spare myself the political frustration. I also figured that a Pride parade in a town like mine indicated how unnecessary Pride parades have become.But this year I found out my (straight) brother was bringing his family, including my very young nieces and nephews. I wanted to see the kids, and I hoped my presence might provide some contrast to whatever left-wing antics they saw there. I was also curious how a Pride parade could possibly be family friendly enough for elementary school kids.Long story short, the whole thing was incredibly anodyne. I saw a couple drag queens and exactly one trans flag, but otherwise you would think it was a parade to celebrate rainbows. There were a few other older gay men wandering around, looking as awkward as I was. I had been worried about how to explain things to the kids, but I don’t think they even realized there was any connection to myself or my husband — they were in it mainly to catch candy. I don’t even recall seeing the words “rights” or “equality” mentioned. The messages were along the lines of “Be Yourself” and “Love Wins!”Afterwards, I learned that this event had been founded not by a homosexual, nor by a trans person, but rather by someone’s mother. Her daughter came out to her (I’m not even sure as what) and the mother decided she needed to show her daughter she was loved no matter what. And it all suddenly made sense. This was what a well-meaning mom wants to see when she sees gay pride. Be yourself! Love wins!I don’t want to say this kind of thing should stop. It was a nice enough time, and I don’t disagree with the message. But, I do wish more people understood exactly how unrooted “Pride” has become from the gay culture that started it and the reasons it was necessary. As I explained to my own mother afterwards, I don’t know of any man who had ever been imprisoned or assaulted just for loving another man. It was always about sex, and it’s still about sex. We just can’t mention that at Pride anymore, I guess.I suspect a great deal of this is a function of getting what we asked for — and the consequences of that taking root. Pride now is for straights as much as for gays — just as all the old super-gay events — like the High Heel Drag Race for Halloween in DC - went from being broken up by the cops (in my adult lifetime) to being packed with countless young straight women trying to be cool — and parents and all the letters of the alphabet. I’