Belgrade Pride has announced this year's slogan – "For the Family" – and a family quarrel immediately broke out. The slogan of the first attempted Pride was "There’s Room for All of Us"; perhaps it’s time to bring that one back.

The presence of queer people at the current protests is so massive that pro-government media tried to use it to discredit the students’ demands, circulating memes portraying the protests as gay parties and cruising spots. This mass presence, besides its mobilizing potential, has sparked expectations that in September we will connect with the ongoing protests, and that Pride, through its theme and momentum, will reflect queer visions of freedom and equality, gather new allies, and assert its manifest relevance. "For the Family" doesn’t reach that far.

The family quarrel revolves around three main issues: whether Pride is taking place under regular or exceptional circumstances; whether its theme should reflect a specific problem faced by queer people or the current social moment; and, as always, whether Pride is a protest or a celebration – a question I won’t get into here. "For the Family" suggests that the organizers believe Pride is taking place under regular circumstances and is focusing on one of the recurring demands we repeat year after year. I take the opposite view – that this September we must show we understand current social shifts, and more importantly, that we are capable of politically articulating an alternative, with the choice of theme and slogan being the first step.

Since November, we have produced 16 minutes of silence, traffic blockades, class suspensions, TV blackouts, cancelled plays and concerts, postponed festivals, work stoppages, strikes, cancelled international fairs, walking, running, cycling. From the authorities we’ve faced bans, arrests, beatings, dismissals, threats, condemnations, persecution, humiliation, and belittling. I would say there is a consensus that things are exceptional, and there is no valid reason for Pride to insist on normalcy.

In 13 years of this government, civil society, the opposition, the media, trade unions, and academia have been bulldozed, and since the beginning of the current student uprising they have been finding new approaches in their work, redefining their goals, and seeking new roles and positions. At the recently held discussion "What’s Pride Still For?", after an opening observation that Pride has taken on the characteristics of a rigid form that constrains it, much was said about the possibility of connecting with the student movement in order to find renewed strength. This is a generational opportunity, and it will not come again soon – the Pride program must reflect that.

Previous slogans such as "Say Yes", "I Will Not Deny", and "Love Is the Law" have already questioned our understanding of family and our place in commonly accepted heteronormative families, so it's hard to claim that the theme of family has been neglected or is urgent – even if we interpret this as a call to "reclaim" the family. The concept is too narrow compared to the broader idea of “family” among social groups and movements, and not nearly ambitious enough given current events.

Every authoritarian government benefits from a Pride that takes place in a vacuum – we’ve recently seen how strong its unifying potential can be in the fight against authoritarianism in Budapest. One way of maintaining that vacuum is the police cordon around Pride to “protect” it from attackers, who, starting this year, are euphemistically referred to as "little daddies." Another is the spin that Pride is a toy of the regime – an idea pushed by a former activist turned regime propagandist – intended to sever its connection with the oppositional-minded public, and it’s working.

The current government, besides lacking the will, has no legitimacy to fulfill any of Pride’s demands. Even if it did, misuse would be likely – either by deepening social divides or, following the example of Israel, covering its current brutality in pink glitter. On the other hand, within the rebellious part of society, there is a capacity to hear Pride’s demands. Students at several faculties in Novi Sad have twice responded to homophobic incidents involving their peers. The argument that the protests are "too right-wing" to understand queer issues is confusing when the proposed alternative is the most right-wing theme possible – "the family" – which promotes queer people fitting into heteronormative structures instead of being liberated from them.

Earlier slogans like "Together We Can", "Pride for All", "My Rights, My Demands", and "For Change" were no less queer for being general. At this moment, they would powerfully reflect the queer perspective across different social groups. Such clear positioning might finally lead to understanding Pride as the authentic voice of one group of citizens – one that does not come from the West, the EU, or Andrićev Venac. The image used in the visual announcing the slogan tells us exactly that – sexual orientation, gender identity, the genocide in Gaza, anti-fascism – these are the values of a shared struggle, not empty slogans.

A slogan like "Freedom for All" could highlight the issue of freedom of assembly, with which Pride constantly struggles, as well as freedom for political prisoners, whose numbers keep growing, and a whole series of freedoms embedded in our demands. "Our Own Choices" could support the call for new elections, but also highlight gender identity and the story of our chosen families. These slogans build on previous ones and in no way diminish the importance of our families with whom we stand on the barricades.

As we watch different social groups rising up, it is difficult to watch a Pride that pretends nothing is happening and aggressively defends its entrenched approach. The pressure for clearer political articulation is a chance to bind us through something more than just identity – so that the word "community," so often uttered, might finally mean something. Otherwise, walking inside the police cordon, we will become "little daddies" with a fondness for the aorist tense, isolated from the greatest political mobilization of our generation.