Returning Pride To Its Anti-Cop Roots

San Francisco Police Officers Eureka Monroe (L) and Brenden Manix (R) take a selfie during the San Francisco Pride parade on Sunday, June, 25, 2017. [AFP / Josh Edelson]

From New York to Denver, and around the world, organizers are kicking cops out of Pride.

Last year amid the pandemic, LGBTQ organzations skipped in-person Pride events and joined nationwide uprisings against police brutality. This year, as Pride returns to the streets, at least three American groups are banning the participation of uniformed cops at Pride.

Brand new bans

Last month, Heritage of Pride, the organization that runs New York City’s Pride march, announced that LGBTQ officers in uniform would be banned from Pride until at least 2025. Police would continue to serve as first responders and security when “absolutely necessary.” Days later, Denver’s LGBTQ community center announced it was banning police from its virtual parade. And in Seattle, Capitol Hill Pride March and Rally banned police participation, saying that “the best way the police can do their job” is to stay at the perimeter of neighborhood events.

All three queer groups cited safety for Pride attendees, especially Black and brown participants, as a primary factor for their decisions to ban cops. Capitol Hill organizers referenced the six Seattle Police Department officers who visited Washington, DC, during the January 6 Capitol insurrection (they remain unidentified). “Capitol Hill Pride does not have confidence at this time in Seattle’s police ability to protect the public and to protect the public’s right to protest,” the group said.

These bans are a long time coming. For years, critics on the left have demanded that Pride event organizers sever their relationships with law enforcement. In 2016, after San Francisco Pride increased their police presence following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Black Lives Matter and sex worker advocacy group St. James Infirmary pulled out of the march. “I’m more afraid of police than terrorists,” said activist Janetta Johnson, a Black trans woman.

Pride’s revolutionary roots

In some ways, banning the police is simply a return to Pride’s roots. “It is vital to remember that Pride started in the late 1950s as a series of riots and protests against police officers who harassed customers at gay establishments,” author Kitty Stryker wrote for Bitch in 2018.

That tradition was continued in 2017, when a dozen protesters in New York City were arrested after blocking the parade’s police participants. That same year, a queer immigrant rights group in Phoenix protested the inclusion of police agencies that work with immigration enforcement. In response, some attendees shoved and shouted racial slurs at them. In 2018, a young trans woman, ReeAnna Segin, was arrested at Philadelphia Pride for trying to set fire to a “Thin Blue Line” flag, and booked into a men’s prison. Today, the phrase “no cops at Pride” has become a viral Twitter meme.

In the past, it hasn’t been so easy to remove cops from Pride. Twin Cities Pride Fest organizers tried to ban uniformed cops in 2017, and Sacramento and St. Louis tried in 2019, but they all reversed course. In Missouri, organizers said they pivoted to “promote healthy relationships” between cops and Pride-goers.

Learning from activists abroad

Pride organizers in Canada and overseas seem to have had greater success at removing uniformed cops, vehicles, and floats from Pride, according to Bitch’s Kitty Stryker. Uniformed police are banned from celebrations in Toronto (since 2017), Calgary (since 2019) and Vancouver (since 2018). Pride London, which had banned police from participating in uniform in 2018, has allowed cops to return to virtual events, though it’s not yet a precedent for next year’s in-person festivities. And in Melbourne, the Victorian Pride Lobby, an LGBTQ+ political advocacy group, publicly opposed cops participating in the annual Midsumma Pride March last month while in uniform. When police showed up anyway, attendees protested, chanting, “Too many coppers, not enough justice.”

The U.S. bans have struck a nerve with local police, with LGBTQ cops accusing organizers of discrimination (though officers are allowed to participate out of uniform). But advocates note that removing police from Pride, in fact, makes the event more inclusive for those who have reason to fear the police.