“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.