By Angela Peoples
It’s June -- and in cities and communities around the country, that means it’s time to hang up the rainbow flags and break out the glittered unicorns for LGBT Pride Month celebrations. Though you wouldn't know it as you're being handed free t-shirts from big banks and signing up to win luxury vacations from credit card companies, the history of Pride celebrations is rooted in queer and trans folks bravely stepping out of the shadows to disrupt the status quo, and celebrating their identities with resilience and love. Many of the historic Pride events we honor and commemorate this month -- including the uprisings at Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall Bar -- were led by queer and trans people of color. Despite this history, Pride festivals today have become associated with whiteness, commercialism, and respectability.
In large cities, small towns, and the places in between, Pride festivals, parades and parties are very often in conflict with the experiences and needs of the most marginalized in the LGBTQ community, who should be at the center of these spaces.
This June, as many folks in the LGBTQ community look to the Supreme Court for a sweeping ruling in favor of marriage equality, we must remind those who seek to white-wash and erase our history that #PrideIsPolitical. It matters how LGBTQ organizations spend their resources, the artists they support, the leaders they uplift, and the people who are included (or not included) in planning these events. If Pride celebrations are funded by the same companies that steal our wages, are over-policed by the same law enforcement agencies that profile and kill us, and are headlined by performers that disrespect and appropriate our culture, how can LGBTQ people of color be expected to feel safe -- let alone welcome and festive -- in these spaces?
The affirmation that #PrideIsPolitical is about much more than queer and trans people of color being safe and welcomed at parades and festivals. The denial of resources, erasing of our history, and lack of analysis around how issues like race, immigration, and reproductive justice intersect with our LGBTQ identities are a consistent barrier to queer and trans people of color’s ability to fight for our collective liberation. It is also a real threat to the movement for full legal and social LGBTQ equality.
GetEQUAL is spending Pride Month talking about the many ways that #PrideIsPolitical and taking action with queer and transgender people of color and our allies who reject versions of LGBTQ Pride that are simply a celebration of assimilation to white heteronormativity.
Already this year, we have seen Trans Latinas shut down Long Beach Pride Parade in California demanding more visibility, employment, and funding for trans women of color. In Pittsburgh, queer and trans people of color are organizing against the Delta Foundation’s booking of Iggy Azalea for the local Pride festival, calling it another example of a Pride event becoming “ a white, cis, gay man’s event.” And Pride Month is just getting started.
Our pride and our lives are worth more than these corporatized parties. Throughout our history, queer and trans people of color have led the way in resisting the commodification of our bodies and our lives -- and we're no longer simply going to watch as Pride festivals erase both our past and our present. Join us for a Twitter chat tomorrow (June 2) at 6:00pm Eastern, and look for events and actions from GetEQUAL throughout the month of June to celebrate all the ways that #PrideisPolitical!
In large cities, small towns, and the places in between, Pride festivals, parades and parties are very often in conflict with the experiences and needs of the most marginalized in the LGBTQ community, who should be at the center of these spaces.
This June, as many folks in the LGBTQ community look to the Supreme Court for a sweeping ruling in favor of marriage equality, we must remind those who seek to white-wash and erase our history that #PrideIsPolitical. It matters how LGBTQ organizations spend their resources, the artists they support, the leaders they uplift, and the people who are included (or not included) in planning these events. If Pride celebrations are funded by the same companies that steal our wages, are over-policed by the same law enforcement agencies that profile and kill us, and are headlined by performers that disrespect and appropriate our culture, how can LGBTQ people of color be expected to feel safe -- let alone welcome and festive -- in these spaces?
The affirmation that #PrideIsPolitical is about much more than queer and trans people of color being safe and welcomed at parades and festivals. The denial of resources, erasing of our history, and lack of analysis around how issues like race, immigration, and reproductive justice intersect with our LGBTQ identities are a consistent barrier to queer and trans people of color’s ability to fight for our collective liberation. It is also a real threat to the movement for full legal and social LGBTQ equality.
GetEQUAL is spending Pride Month talking about the many ways that #PrideIsPolitical and taking action with queer and transgender people of color and our allies who reject versions of LGBTQ Pride that are simply a celebration of assimilation to white heteronormativity.
Already this year, we have seen Trans Latinas shut down Long Beach Pride Parade in California demanding more visibility, employment, and funding for trans women of color. In Pittsburgh, queer and trans people of color are organizing against the Delta Foundation’s booking of Iggy Azalea for the local Pride festival, calling it another example of a Pride event becoming “ a white, cis, gay man’s event.” And Pride Month is just getting started.
Our pride and our lives are worth more than these corporatized parties. Throughout our history, queer and trans people of color have led the way in resisting the commodification of our bodies and our lives -- and we're no longer simply going to watch as Pride festivals erase both our past and our present. Join us for a Twitter chat tomorrow (June 2) at 6:00pm Eastern, and look for events and actions from GetEQUAL throughout the month of June to celebrate all the ways that #PrideisPolitical!
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