PRIDE is a protest. It’s about fighting for the rights of those marginalised because of who we are and who we love, and at a time when queer rights, and trans rights in particular, have been under attack, it continues to be of vital importance.
It’s about fighting for better for LGBT+ people at home, where an increasingly intolerant Labour government in Westminster is continuing the Tories’ legacy of demonising the trans community, or abroad, in the countless countries where being LGBT+ continues to be criminalised, often as a result of historic western imperialism.
Pride is also about solidarity, and recognition of the interconnected struggles of the queer community and others facing persecution and injustice.
This solidarity is long-running and best demonstrated by the mutual solidarity expressed between the LGBT+ community and the mining community in the 1980s, both facing attacks from a cruel Conservative UK government under Thatcher.
READ MORE: Thousands of people turn out for Glasgow Pride march and celebrations
The group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised thousands of pounds for striking miners whose livelihoods were being destroyed, and built a strong coalition of support between the trade union and LGBT+ movements which continues to live on to this day.
LGSM recognised the commonality in the struggles between the LGBT+ community and workers losing their livelihoods – from their common enemy in the form of the oppressive British state, to the disproportionate impact a lack of workplace equality and trade union rights has on queer workers.
They recognised that, by coming together, the working class was so much stronger in the fight for a fairer society.
I was proud, therefore, to march alongside the Glasgow Green Party and thousands of others on Saturday as part of the No Pride In Genocide bloc at this year’s Glasgow Pride.
(Image: PA)
Recognising the inherent link between the fight for queer rights in Scotland, the UK and globally, and the plight of the Palestinian people facing a brutal onslaught by Israel, we marched together to make it known that Glasgow’s queer community stands firmly in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Additionally, there was a clear recognition from this radical bloc – of which the number of attendees appeared to rival that of the rest of the pride march in its entirety – that climate justice was another key pillar in the fight for global peace and equality.
Pride is a protest, but it was unfortunate that one of the targets of our protest was the group which had assumed the organising duties for the wider march itself – Glasgow’s Pride Ltd.
When the Glasgow Greens sent them a simple email just over a week ago to enquire as to the corporate sponsors of their event to ensure they were compliant with our ethical standards before the party promoted the event to our members, we were met with a deeply hostile and offensive response.
No surprise, given their corporate “allies” turned out to include the likes of JP Morgan Chase, an American multinational finance company with huge investment in both the fossil fuel industry and in Israeli weapons firms.
Even so, the response to the Greens from Glasgow’s Pride Ltd included deeply offensive rhetoric accusing the Glasgow Greens of “supporting a nation where the LGBTQIA+ community is criminalised”, and stated it would be contacting Police Scotland.
The suggestion that there is conflict between supporting LGBT+ equality and the plight of the Palestinian people is a deeply offensive one, not least due to the implications this has for queer Palestinians, for whom the greatest threat to their survival comes from the Israeli genocide before anything else.
The website Queering The Map – an online platform which allows queer people from around the world to anonymously post with their global location – includes numerous quotes from queer Palestinians.
“My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told how much we like each other and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To younus, I will kiss you in heaven,” one reads.
READ MORE: Palestine row breaks out between Scottish Greens and Pride organisers
“If I had known that bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything. I’m sorry I was a coward.”
These quotes show the beauty of queer, Palestinian love, and the brutality of Israel’s genocide.
They show that, regardless of what Israeli propaganda tells you, there is so much queer love in Gaza, and that ending the onslaught and building a free Palestine is a queer rights issue.
It must be a core part of our fight for pride – and it was deeply offensive for Glasgow’s Pride Ltd to make any suggestion that the plight of the Palestinian people was in any way in conflict with that of Glasgow’s queer community.
(Image: Glasgow Pride event)
There have been multiple well-documented allegations of the Israeli military forcing queer Palestinians to spy on their neighbours under threat of being outed, and Israel using LGBT+ rights as a weapon in their propaganda against the Palestinian people.
As Scotland’s queer community, we have to lend our voices and our solidarity in fighting against this brutality, and I’m proud that on Saturday in Glasgow, that’s exactly what we did.
The radical bloc was masterfully organised by a small group of grassroots queer activists who formed No Pride In Genocide Glasgow.
They amassed an enormous turnout, and started the march with powerful and moving speeches from queer activists, student groups and Scottish Greens councillor Holly Bruce.
While the main march was headlined by corporations whose understanding of queer liberation was limited to slapping a rainbow on their logo, the radical bloc was a gathering of queer Glaswegians and those who’d travelled in from further afield, determined to fight for peace, justice and equality.
READ MORE: Green Party still have 'healthy' relationship with Scottish Greens, says MP
All too often, the version of pride we see on our screens and on our High Streets is a sanitised, corporate distortion of what pride actually means to queer communities whose fight against oppression is far from over.
It’s all too often seen as a marketing opportunity for organisations to appear relevant, while they continue to be financially complicit in the very oppression they claim to be against.
Pride can never belong to corporations or shady limited companies – it belongs to the grassroots, to the community, and on Saturday in Glasgow, our community proudly turned up and made it as clear as can be: there can be no pride on a dead planet, and there can be No Pride In Genocide.
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