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“We’re not going to ‘build a bridge’ with police officers who keep burning them down,” said Alex Andrews, a sex worker activist in Florida, who was upset to learn this week that a police contingent was scheduled to march just a few groups behind her Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) coalition at St Pete Pride on Sunday.
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But in California, New York, Florida and other regions this year, activists are standing up to pro-police LGBT leaders. Some Pride organizers have argued that the festivals are an opportunity to build bridges between law enforcement and queer communities, that LGBT officers deserve to march, and that the police brutality of 1969 is not today’s reality. “The tide is growing around the idea of restricting police involvement in Pride across the country, and across the world,” said Ashley, whose group is organizing a Queer Liberation march on 30 June separate from the city’s world-famous parade. Opposition to law enforcement marching in Pride parades is not new, but has intensified this year as the festivals have adopted themes honoring the anniversary of Stonewall, the LGBT rebellion against police abuses that led to the first Pride march and cemented June as Pride month around the globe. The People’s Power Assemblies & Workers World Contingent at the 2017 New York City Pride march. “It’s an act that attempts to restore some measure of safety to our rights to organize.” It’s an act of resistance,” said Cyril, whose mother was a member of the Black Panthers. “The efforts to remove policing from Pride are really efforts to ensure safety for the communities that are there. “Police have often been a force of terror for queer and trans communities,” said Malkia Devich Cyril, a queer activist and leader in the group Movement for Black Lives, who said they won’t be attending San Francisco Pride due to the way police and corporations have co-opted it. These groups are pushing back against corporate-sponsored parades that embrace police in the name of “inclusion” and “unity” – and return to the radical and riotous roots of the movement. Queer and trans activists across the US are engaging in “cops out of Pride” efforts this month, with protests and alternative “cop-free” events that seek to recognize the ongoing police mistreatment of LGBT people. The group wants police removed from Pride altogether. “The NYPD is still an oppressive force in so many lives.”Īshley is part of Reclaim Pride, a coalition that wants more than a 50-year-late apology. “It was a symbolic PR stunt,” said Colin P Ashley, a local queer black activist.