The history of the pride parade comes from less celebratory roots, tied more to political activism and protests. Born out of necessity, pride marches have been a living, breathing manifestation of a political protest. Pride marches have been intersectional as they provide an inclusive platform to understand how the oppression which LGBTQ people face is not only because of patriarchy and heteronormativity.
The case studies below illustrate how the LGBTQ rights movement has always taken into account the macro-structures of oppression like class, race, gender, politics and caste, in its fight for equality.
1) Stonewall Riots – Race, Sexual Orientation And State Patronage Of Police Brutality
Context:
Stonewall Inn was a famous gay bar in the Greenwich Village of New York City. It was a haven for the queer community in a time when homosexuality was criminalised and cross-dressing or masquerading as the opposite sex in public was a crime.
A Political And Intersectional Protest:
As Greenwich Village was a safe space for queers, it was ghettoised as a problematic area. The then Mayor of the region, to clean up the image of the village, had recommended frequent police raids to dispel the queer crowd from the area.
In one such incident, when New York Police Department forces decided to raid the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969, what transpired laid the precedent for 50 years of pride as a platform for political protest and consciousness-raising. In the raid, the police to send out a strong message to the community had rounded up and arrested community patrons and drag queens.
Two transgender women of colour, Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, were said to have resisted arrest and thrown the first bottle (or brick or stone) at the cops, respectively. This led to a riot which helped in the first significant mobilisation of queer community members and rights group in New York to demand equal protection under the law for community members.
To commemorate the Stonewall riot, the first pride march was organised on its first anniversary to highlight discrimination against queer persons. It was in the aftermath of the civil rights movement and at the height of women’s rights movement that Marsha P Johnson had strongly advocated how there was no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us, highlighting the intersectional nature of people’s movements aimed at equality of any kind.
2) Brazil – Prides As A Political Protest Against The Conservative Government And Its Policies
Context:
In the recent presidential elections of Brazil, a far-right, anti-LGBTQ leader, Jair Bolsonaro won the presidentship. President Bolsonaro is a climate change non-believer, pro-corporate, anti-tribal-rights leader, whose policies have adversely affected the Brazilian queer community.
A Political And Intersectional Protest:
The Sao Paulo Pride parade this year strongly mobilised against the increasingly conservative and regressive political climate. It condemned the idea of the president to recriminalize homosexuality, his regressive crackdown on political opponents and former president Lula da Silva who has been in prison since April 2018 due to a politically motivated sham trial. The Pride was also attended by a large group of Amazonian tribes demanding for the conservation of Amazon forests which reiterates the intersectionality of pride marches.
3) Canada Pride Marches Against Colonialism, Racism And Police Brutality
Context:
Canada, which has a well-documented history of the evolution of Pride marches, was one of the first countries to decriminalise homosexuality and head towards equal marriage rights. The queer community in Canada has been very vocal about the differential treatment meted out to them by the state, the police and the law since the 1960s.
Political And Intersectional Nature:
Prides in Canada since 1969 have been protesting against the oppression from state institutions. The Pride marches have been a site of dissent against police targeting the LGBTQ community disproportionately, immigration policies being sternly anti-LGBTQ, land grabbing by the government affecting indigenous LGBTQ folks and lack of accessible and affordable medical care for LGBTQ persons.
In recent years, Pride Marches in Canada have also become increasingly conscious of corporations funding pride marches as the same companies go on to fund conservative candidates in political races who get on to powerful positions and make adverse policies impacting everyone. Community members have also strongly demanded the boycott of policemen in uniform from Pride marches as a response to the neglect of the police forces towards crimes against trans-community members in Ontario and other regions in Canada.
4) Pride Marches In South Africa Against Discrimination Based On Sexuality And Colour
Context:
South Africa is a highly stratified society, where class, race and gender continue to be strong markers of inequality. The LGBTQ movement in South Africa focused on fighting against anti-queer laws passed on by its colonisers. Like in its western counterparts, police brutality and restriction on access to public spaces disproportionately affected queer persons of colour in white dominated social order.
Political And Intersectional Nature:
Even after the anti-apartheid movement, pride events in South Africa are still predominantly attended by the white middle class, excluding queer people of colour. In the recent Cape Town Pride, this exclusion was strongly questioned by queer rights and trans-rights organisations in South Africa as violence against queer people of colour was exceptionally high in South Africa, with multiple murder and assault cases being reported.
At the end of 2017, News24 published a report about the high levels of violence that the LGBTQ community faces in South Africa. According to the report, race, religion, culture and geography played a role in the increasing levels of intolerance and violence towards the LGBTQ community in South Africa.
5) Israel – Queer Demonstration Against Illegal Occupation
Context:
According to Queer Solidarity Palestine, Israel, a developed Jewish state in the Middle East, has started using pride as a platform to appear liberal and progressive to cover up its human rights violation against Palestinian people in Gaza and West Banks (occupied/disputed territory).
Political And Intersectional Nature:
Several hundred LGBTQ activists blocked the path of the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv in 2019 protesting the Israeli government’s use of the LGBTQ community to cover up its discriminatory and racist policies and the maintenance of the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. One of the demonstrators said, “While we’re demonstrating here, just a few kilometres away Israeli soldiers are shooting people exercising their right to protest.”
6) Pride Marches In India – A Political And Intersectional Manifesto
Context:
India takes pride in its people and its diversity, but this pride has always fallen short of making the Indian society progressive, inclusive and accepting in practice. Religion and its patriarchal norms make India a tough terrain to fight for equal rights, where even conversations around sex are considered to be a taboo.
The struggle for equal rights has seen the workers’ movement, women’s movement, Dalit and Adivasi movements change the political landscape in India. Till date in India, until and unless, you don’t become a significant vote bank, the political class ignores your grievances.
Political And Intersectional Nature:
It was on the shoulders of the women’s movement in India that LGBTQ struggle took its leap of faith questioning the unequal treatment meted out to LGBTQ persons. NGOs in India started questioning the disproportionate targeting of trans community members in HIV AIDS outreach programme, they also highlighted the implication of IPC 377 in furthering the LGBTQ community from the mainstream by stigmatising and criminalising their gender identity and sexual orientation.
Rights groups and trans-collectives across India started highlighting police brutality, lack of education, job opportunities, accessible healthcare and legal aid due to the homophobic nature of these institutions. Restricted access to public space and lack of opportunity in decision-making processes made pride marches across India a walking and talking protest manifesto.
Queer persons in India come from diverse social locations with their own stories of oppression. These oppressions manifest in different forms and degrees but root back to the same dominant macro-structures of inequality – class, caste, race and gender. Therefore, the queer response to it has always been and needs to be intersectional (rights for all or rights for none).
In conclusion, these stories from across the world are a testament to the idea that LGBTQ movements are not disconnected from the struggle for the rights of others. In every struggle that celebrates freedom and liberation, queer persons will be there to protest against the crimes of power, prejudice and privilege committed in their names.