By: Veronica Greer
Published: January 20, 2022
Throughout much of the past 50 years, there has been a long-standing and heated debate around police officers and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Two-Spirited, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQ2IA+) pride community. This hot-button issue is about whether police officers should be allowed to participate in pride celebrations and march in the pride parades, especially in their uniforms. What is very clear is that there has been and continues to be a long and traumatic history of targeted raids, disproportionate violence, and homophobia which backs up the desire to not have uniformed police at pride. There is absolutely no place for uniformed officers to march in a celebration of pride, freedom, and our very identity due to the past and ongoing discriminatory behaviours of police officers towards many minorities, including the LGBTQ2+ community, and the oppression and trauma which that uniform represents.
It will help to first understand what is meant here by ‘pride’. LGBTQ Pride (also called Pride, or Gay Pride) is a celebration of sexual orientation and gender identity (Britannica, “Gay Pride”). This celebration usually takes place in the month of June (known as pride month), due to the date of the Stonewall Riots, but many cities have their Pride celebrations in other summer months from May through September (Britannica, “Gay Pride”). The first Pride parade was held one year after the 1969 Stonewall Riots and was called “The Christopher Street Liberation March”, named after the street where the Stonewall Inn was located (Smith). This Liberation March occurred on June 28th, 1970 and went along a few streets in NYC before ending at Central Park (Smith). This march was to commemorate the Stonewall Riots which had occurred the year before on June 28th, 1969 (Britannica, “Gay Pride”). The celebration of Pride is not only a time for celebrating the history and gains of the LGBTQ2IA+ community but is also still a protest because of the lack of equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people even to this day.
To understand the issue of police presence and participation in the marches, we need to explore the origin of policing, the traumatic role that police officers have played in the lives of the LGBTQ2IA+ community and other minorities, as well as how when we look at current studies, very little has changed in the past 50 years when it comes to policing practices (Mallory et al.). The raids that triggered the Stonewall Riots were not the first ones on a gay establishment but rather one of many regularly occurring raids conducted on gay establishments throughout the 1950s and 1960s (Haynes). When we examine the origin of policing in Canada, we can see that like many law enforcement organizations, the first RCMP force was created because of racism. The headline of an article on Global News states that “The RCMP was created to control the Indigenous people” (Gerster) and within that article, Jocelyn Thorpe states in even more detail that “The Mounties were created for a specific purpose: to assert sovereignty over the Indigenous people and their lands” (qtd. in Gerster). In the southern US, the origins of the police are traced back to the 1700s when patrol groups called “Slave Patrols” were created to chase down runaway slaves (Olito). In the northern US, the police were created to control the rapidly growing immigrant population on behalf of the existing white settlers from England and the Netherlands (Olito).
In the present day, police organizations make claims that they have changed, that the officers who are members of the LGBTQ2IA+ community deserve to attend Pride, and that the actions of the past do not define who they are now. However, when we examine the approach of many police and law enforcement agencies to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, it is clear that the police have not changed the way they deal with minorities, and that racism and discrimination are still part of the approach to policing. All over the US, the police unfairly shut down peaceful left-wing BLM protests while allowing white-dominated and right-wing protests to continue unrestricted, like the Capitol Riots of January 6, 2021 (Deliso et al.). According to a study published by the Williams Institute, there is still recent evidence to show that LGBTQ2IA+ people are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement officers, and that “harassment and discrimination are greatest for LGBT people of colour, transgender persons, and youth” (Mallory et al.). Additionally, an article published in The Guardian talks about statistics from the US Crisis Monitor states that police are “three times more likely to use force against [politically] left-wing protestors than against right-wing protestors” (Beckett). Clearly, there still needs to be a lot of change in policing before the LGBTQ2IA+ and BIPOC communities can begin trusting police officers and feeling safe around them.
Pride, at its core, still carries the rebellious essence of declaring to the world that “We deserve to exist without harassment or fear,” and that “We should have the same rights as white, heterosexual, and cisgender people.” That very spark of fighting back and publicly “declaring your existence” by marching in early pride protests in New York City “took a new sense of audacity and courage,” according to Fred Sargeant (qtd. in Smith). The riot which resulted from the raid on Stonewall Inn was a pure act of rebellion after so much intimidation and unfair targeting; the community had reached its breaking point. After decades of oppression and fear, the Stonewall Riots created a worldwide movement of gay rights which we still see in Pride celebrations today (Britannica, “Stonewall Riots”).
Policing organizations in some cities have started placing rainbow bands across their badges, or even special shoulder patches with a rainbow theme. This is a great gesture in theory but without an actual change in police practices, it doesn’t carry much weight. There are many organizations that engage in something called “Rainbow Washing” (Dadani et al.). This is described as showing public support for the LGBTQ2IA+ community or using pride colours on their products, while privately engaging in practices that are detrimental to those that identify as LGBTQ2IA+ (such as lobbying against gender identity bathroom usage or donating to Trump’s political campaign) (Dadani et al.). This would be analogous to a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a bully who pretends to be your friend when it benefits them but continues to do you harm when others are not looking.
We can ask ourselves if the LGBTQ2IA+ community and law enforcement officers will be able to mend the wounds of the past and gain trust between them, however, that depends on the steps taken by the policing institutions to acknowledge and repair the harm and trauma they have caused. They need to honestly show a reason for minorities to trust them and they have not succeeded at that yet. The current position of the LGBTQ2IA+ community and its allies remain that any police officer is free to attend Pride festivals, celebrations, and marches, but without the uniform. Indeed, everyone is welcome at Pride events if they respect that these celebrations carry a history, have meaning, and that LGBTQ2IA+ people have the right to feel safe without the presence of uniformed police who have long been known as a cause of harm and trauma.
Works Cited
Beckett, Lois. “US Police Three Times as Likely to Use Force against Leftwing Protesters, Data Finds.” The Guardian, 14 Jan. 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Britannica, Editors. “Gay Pride.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 21 June 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Gay-Pride. Accessed 15 January 2022.
---. “Stonewall Riots.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 21 June 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Dadani, Sana, et al. “Thing to Know: Rainbow-Washing.” TheSkimm, 25 June 2021, www.theskimm.com/news/thing-to-know-rainbow-washing-3gG3rwl2BoOQ8lEf1my8yN. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Deliso, Meredith, et al. “‘Extraordinary Dichotomy’ in Police Response to Black Lives Matter Protests, Capitol Chaos.” ABC News, ABC News Internet Ventures, 8 Jan. 2021, www.abcnews.go.com/US/extraordinary-dichotomy-police-response-black-lives-matter-protests/story?id=75118567. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Gerster, Jane. “The RCMP Was Created to Control Indigenous People. Can That Relationship Be Reset?” Global News, Corus Entertainment, 15 June 2019, www.globalnews.ca/news/5381480/rcmp-indigenous-relationship/. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Haynes, Suyin. “The History behind the LGBTQ Fight against Police Violence.” Time.com, Time Magazine, 19 June 2020, www.time.com/5855232/lgbtq-protest-history/. Accessed 15 January 2022.
Mallory, Christy, et al. “Discrimination and Harassment by Law Enforcement Officers in the LGBT Community.” The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, Mar. 2015, www.williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-discrim-law-enforcement/. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Olito, Frank. “Protests against Police Have Broken out across the Country. Here’s How Policing Has Evolved in the US since Its Beginnings in the 1600s.” Insider.com, Insider Inc, 26 Apr. 2021, www.insider.com/history-of-police-in-the-us-photos-2020-6#in-the-north-as-more-immigrants-moved-into-cities-by-the-mid-1800s-citizens-looked-for-a-more-formal-way-to-keep-order-3. Accessed 16 January 2022.
Smith, Erika W. “From Stonewall to Pride 50: The History of the Pride Parade.” Refinery29.com, Refinery29, 6 June 2019, www.refinery29.com/en-us/when-was-first-gay-pride-parade-origin. Accessed 15 January 2022.