If real change is possible let’s praise Pride as a protest

In the midst of a global pandemic, the increasingly disturbing behaviour of the US and UK governments (not to mention those in other parts of the world), and a wave of anti-racist civil unrest across the globe, it would be easy to forget we are also in the middle of Pride Month 0. But this remarkable coalescence of events – the perfect storm of our political moment – presents a crucial opportunity to reflect on the radical roots and potential of Pride.

Although the Stonewall riots took place one year after the pivotal events of 1968 – when a revolt in Paris sparked protests around the world and inspired the growth of numerous interwoven social movements – it can be understood as part of the same trajectory. At a time when civil rights activism, feminism and anti-capitalism were reverberating through the public consciousness, the conditions were ripe for gay liberation (as it was then described) to step out of the shadows and into the streets.

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From the beginning, it was clear that the interests of these movements and the communities they represented overlapped and, as a result, they often worked in tandem. Of course, this was fraught with challenges; with political and social differences, many of which were never truly resolved. But the promise of a transformative disruption of the systems of power which governed people’s lives presented a common goal, and the efforts of activists through the following decade resulted in major legal and cultural gains.

While gay rights groups were already meeting and campaigning for change before 1969, Stonewall is recognised as a catalysing moment, when the tone and urgency of the conversation shifted, and a more defiant and militant liberation movement gained traction. At the time of the first Pride march, and those which followed closely in other cities across America and Europe, homosexuality was criminalised in all but one US state and in many European countries (including Scotland).

Beyond this, the legal rights of LGBTQ people were very limited, and social attitudes meant that participating in Pride events was an act of bravery, risking personal safety and security in the name of demanding equality.

In many countries, this is still the case, including in parts of Europe, such as Poland and Hungary, where anti-LGBTQ policies and rhetoric from far-right politicians have resulted in a rollback in rights and public safety. And yet, activists continue to organise Pride events and other opportunities for LGBTQ people to come together and refuse to be shamed for being who they are. This year, an online Global Pride event will take place on June 27, and its slogan is: “Exist. Persist. Resist.”

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Pride was and still is a protest, and the movement it represents is one which owes a debt of gratitude to a radical history, but this could be forgotten in countries like the UK where LGBTQ rights have advanced significantly. In some ways it might be seen as a mark of progress that Pride has been able to become synonymous more with party than protest in the UK and other Western democracies; a sign of a larger shift towards a depoliticisation of LGBTQ identities in response to the easing of state repression.

However, to accept this move uncritically would be to do an injustice both to our LGBTQ allies globally who require solidarity which is firmly political and to those within our own society who still face inequality and oppression on multiple grounds.

Hand in hand with this shift away from the political has been one towards the market: towards brands using Pride as an opportunity to sell products, and towards ticketed Pride events aiming to make a profit from people’s desire for community in a world which often leaves them feeling isolated.

Pride Glasgow has, in recent years, become an obvious example of this, although it is certainly not the only one. First, in 2017, it made headlines after organisers condemned a group of protesters and celebrated their arrest after the protesters challenged the decision to invite Police Scotland to lead the march, in light of the police’s recently historical role in enforcing state oppression of LGBTQ people and their ongoing enforcement of racist policies such as the “hostile environment” which make LGBTQ asylum seekers unsafe.

The following year, the event attracted more controversy when it oversold tickets and had to turn people away who queued for hours to get in.

It is not a coincidence that the move towards embracing consumerism and away from protest have taken place concurrently. The commodification of Pride is, in essence, a concession to the prevailing power structures of our time, an admission that as long as “we” are included in the system it doesn’t really need to change. But there is so, so much that needs to change – and fast.

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For LGBTQ people who experience poverty, homelessness, xenophobia, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or the absence of family or community support networks, the UK and the world beyond it cannot look like a very equal or accepting place. To view any of these issues in isolation from the struggle for LGBTQ equality, or from one another, is not only failing people whose lives are constrained by those intersecting injustices; it represents a wider failure to appreciate that any progress which casts some aside can only ever be surface level. As black American lesbian feminist Audre Lorde famously put it: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

The tension between LGBTQ campaigners who fully embrace this approach and those who have sought instead to make gains within existing institutions is as old as the Pride movement itself. The line is not always clearly drawn and there is an argument to be made that the latter strand, which has become the more dominant, has been effective in securing legal reforms.

But it has become all too apparent in recent years that some of the underlying homophobia we hoped had dissipated was merely bubbling under the surface, ready to spill out at the first push. As much of the world finds itself in thrall to far-right populists who are driving forward a racist, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ agenda, it couldn’t be clearer that these issues are inextricably linked.

While we might, for a minute, forget that there is anything particularly radical about our existence and insistence on living as openly queer people, the regressive forces in the world will not. For those who want, desperately, to reinforce traditional interpersonal and state-level power dynamics which are based in a strictly gendered division of labour, the promotion of the heterosexual family is and has always been integral to the political and economic project.

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LGBTQ people, through their relationships and subversion of gender norms, are a threat to that ideology, and that ideology is a threat to us. Only by confronting that head on, in committed solidarity with all those who face oppression under that same political and social system, will we ever truly overcome it.

There are rare moments in history when the opportunity arises for a real and lasting change. As the Black Lives Matter movement rises up and the Covid-19 crisis shines a spotlight on the deep, multi-layered inequalities and injustices which define our economic and political institutions, it feels like this could well be one of those moments. This Pride month, while the usual ticketed events are cancelled, my hope and wish is that this can be a chance for LGBTQ people to consider our role in making sure that it is.