Kick Police Out Of Pride

Originally written 5/30/2019

Are we doing what we need to do to make our loved ones feel safe during pride? Not as long as police are involved.

It is important to provide sanctuaries for TLGBQIA2S folks of color, especially formerly incarcerated Black trans women, to celebrate themselves and their communities, and that can’t happen with the police present. Many more communities are negatively impacted at Pride as well and there are other aspects that need to be addressed to make Pride safe. Here is a list of conditions during pride that makes communities unsafe.

1. Increased jail population for homeless communities: During Pride, the city increases funding to the San Francisco Police Department to initiate sweeps at Civic Center and Powell to “clean up” the streets for tourists and Pride guests. This causes homeless people to be displaced and jailed. The money that is invested in police sweeps can be reallocated to train communities and organizations in de-escalation and problem-solving training. The city also increases funding to the San Francisco Police Department for increased police presence in the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin is the safest district for the most marginalized LGBTQIA communities and heightened police increases arrests and furthers displacement.

2. Not financially accessible: It’s not affordable to all communities to buy food from vendors during Pride. Prices are disproportionately increased during Pride and we don’t know who benefits from that flow of money. An alternative would be discounted activities, food, and beverages for low-income communities attending Pride.

3. Not accessible to disabled communities: There is not enough wheelchair space, not enough chairs, and not enough different accessible options. There should be paid volunteers to support people with different accessibility needs. There should be increased access the bathrooms and drinking water.

4. Commercialized and corporatized: Ban corporations investing and benefiting financially from the Prison Industrial Complex! Pride began as anti-police and anti-prison, it would be a disservice to provide space for those corporations.

5. False sense of pride at Pride: Pride does not celebrate the most marginalized LGBTQIA communities: Black trans women, trans women of color, disabled LGBTQIA, Intersex, and people with low to no income. Pride is celebrating while breaking these communities down, and at the same time, not including them

In addition to TGIJP, St. James Infirmary and BreakOUT​ are organizations that have “walked out of Pride” in the past.

Toronto, Canada has banned police in their Pride Toronto parade https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/pride-toronto-members-vote-to-keep-uniformed-police-officers-out-of-parade-1.4265114?fbclid=IwAR1sPNYhQMv-0SJAGUubcc2aLv1Hc2nUReo_lB2iynPMeuAq9vkC-LP-HOo

Teen Vogue agrees No Cops at Pride https://www.teenvogue.com/story/why-police-arent-welcome-at-pride?fbclid=IwAR3ed941zH5wZEd4jC1mSKm6-AmNm1lzqsGKN4NfQRP1clAP3s-1kucWXug