PRIDE'S PURPOSE
WHAT IS PRIDE TODAY?
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HOW WE GOT HERE
Although the NYC Pride March is still a march in name, the event today would be unrecognizable from the first march following the Stonewall Riots. Over time the focus of the march has shifted from activism, to a solemn note through the HIV/AIDS crisis, through to the party environment currently. Today, Pride is celebrated in major cities across the world, often with huge participation and attendance. InterPride has identified 944 Pride events throughout the world so far, and it’s still compiling the list. The sections below provide an overview of the history of Pride, as well as contemporary issues regarding the format of Pride today. This overview is in no way comprehensive.
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Inn was a critical LGBTQ+ institution in New York City where members of the community could afford to spend the night.
At 1:20 am on June 28th, 1969 the police raided Stonewall Inn.
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However, the police had to await the arrival of their squad cars so arrested patrons were held handcuffed on the sidewalk outside of the bar. After one handcuffed woman, who was hit over the head by a police officer, cried to the growing crowd to “do something,” they started throwing small items a the police, sparking a riot by the crowd which now numbered in the hundreds. Police barricaded themselves inside Stonewall and the crowd shortly set fire to the barricade. Although the fire department and Tactical Police Force put the fire out and rescued the officers, thousands of people continued to show up outside Stonewall over the subsequent days.
The ‘one handcuffed woman’ was Sylvia Rivera, a QPOC drag queen. Rivera, along with Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans woman, were central to the Stonewall Riots and the gay liberation movement that the riots sparked. In fact, the main participants and leaders in the riot were trans and gender non-conforming people of color and sex workers who were most often the target of police violence.
Christopher Street Gay Liberation March
Pride activism before the Stonewall Riots primarily used assimilationist strategies. Walks or vigils were held in silence with a required dress code of men in jackets and ties and women in dresses to show that ‘we can fit in with you’.
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Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargaent, Ellen Brody, and Linda Rhodes proposed an annual march on the last Saturday in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots with ‘no dress or age regulations’ at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. ​
On June 28th, 1970, the Christopher Street Liberation Day March took place from Greenwich Village to Central Park. Similar marches took place in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
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Following Stonewall, gay liberationists located oppression in social systems, and their goal was to transform them these. They emphasized pride over pity, choice over essentialism, and liberations over assimilation.
- Queer: A Graphic History
Yet, the transgender, gender non-conforming, and QPOC that were on the frontlines at Stonewall became remarkably absent from the Pride movement that was sparked from their actions. When Rivera made a speech at a 1973 rally, she was booed by the crowd. The same year she and Johnson were banned by the march’s organizers. They founded the collective, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which fought for and provided shelter for transgender people in New York.​
Pride Today
Since 1984 the official NYC Pride events have been produced by a non-profit, Heritage of Pride (HOP). Their mission states, “Heritage of Pride works toward a future without discrimination where all people have equal rights under the law. We do this by producing LGBTQIA+ Pride events that inspire, educate, commemorate and celebrate our diverse community.” Today the NYC Pride March annually has at least two million people in attendance and usually runs over 9 hours in length. This year commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots with plans to host the largest pride celebration in history in New York City, branded as Stonewall 50/World Pride.
There were no floats, no music, no boys in briefs. The cops turned their backs on us to convey their disdain, but the masses of people kept carrying signs and banners, chanting and waving to surprised onlookers.
- Fred Sargean
March to Parade
It is doubtful that anyone who attends the official NYC Pride March would classify it as a political protest. Despite this, Chris Frederick, the managing director of NYC Pride, says, "We still call ours a march to show our respects and commemorate the history of what these events started out as originally. We have said that once the LGBT community no longer faces discrimination and hate worldwide we will then identify the march as a parade." But is this just semantics?
This points to the very conflict and question of the purpose of Pride today. Because of the legal wins within the LGBTQ+ movement in the 1990s and 2000s, being gay is more accepted today than ever before, especially in most major cities where the large Pride marches take place. That has inherently changed the vibe of Pride and some say that is okay, even an indication of achievement.
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As Pride has begun to feel more like a party and less a march some have complained about Pride being co-opted by people who don’t identify as LGBTQ+. In a comparison to St. Patrick’s day transforming from a parade in honor of Ireland’s saint to day most closely affiliated with drinking, “Gay Pride marches have become the new St. Patrick’s Day, only with rainbow tutus instead of shamrocks.” A survey of NYC Pride in 2014 found that a quarter of the people at the march identified as straight. While there is nothing inherently wrong with straight allies attending Pride, the complaints focus on the need for non-LGBTQ+ people to be active allies rather than only looking for a party.
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Greg Pennington, a curator for the GLBT historical Society in San Francisco, is happy to see straight people showing up for Pride, regardless if they just want to party, noting it as progress and what was originally fought for. He goes on to say, "For some of us, we feel like we’re losing that specialness that we have as gay people. That specialness was a defense. We created that sense of specialness among ourselves, and that is the price of progress, losing that sense of specialness."
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However, not everyone in the community is happy about the change. Andrew Jolivette is a professor at San Francisco State University and calls the commercialization of gay culture “Gay, Inc.” He worries that the Pride has become “cool” and such acceptance hides the work that still needs to be done rather than “uplift marginalized voices and to acknowledge the community’s struggle to achieve progress.”
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Pride Corportization
With the growth of Pride events comes with a need for money, a problem that has largely been solved with an increase of corporate sponsorships. Support by corporations is likely driven by two forces: first, the LGBTQ+ community had an estimated $830 billion in purchasing power in the US in 2013 and represent a loyal, reliable customer base, and second, many companies now have internal LGBTQ+ councils with budgets.
There have been varying degrees of backlash against the corporatization of Pride. Some argue that the companies sponsoring Pride are doing so for only the publicity; however, support other events or issues that have a negative effect on the LGBTQ+ community. For example, Adidas sold a special ‘pride pack’ in 2018 but also sponsored the soccer World Cup in Russia, a country with well documented anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
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When corporations don’t think supporting the community aligns with their main consumer they are quick to retreat. In 2017, when the Pride parade in Los Angeles had an anti-Trump theme, many corporate sponsors decided to withdraw, one being Wells Fargo; however, in 2018, with the anti-Trump theme gone, Wells Fargo and their fellow corporate sponsors once again returned to the parade.
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While people may remember the large corporate floats best from the marches, in 2017 NYC Pride of the 450 groups registered, 75% of them were nonprofits. For the 25% of corporate floats, they can be beneficial and a source of inclusion for the LGBTQ+ employees of those corporations. Patrick Gothman shared their experience in getting to march for their company in Pride: “The closet that employment had always imposed on me, shaming me into choosing honesty or security felt like from another life altogether. Where I had always been told, you represent us, please don’t be gay, I was experiencing for the first time the real pride that comes with hearing, you’re gay, go represent us!” In addition, some corporations invite local nonprofits to march with them, paying for their expenses, although this is not universal and not a requirement. A representative from NYC Pride also said that they will turn town a sponsorship if the company does not seem to actually support the community.
While the attention by corporations has led to a shift in perspective and a larger inclusion in popular culture, the representation of members of the LGBTQ+ community is absolutely skewed to ignore the real poverty and discrimination that many face. Burying Pride under a pile of corporate money sustains the myth of gay affluence and pink washes queerness. It is much easier on a consumer to buy a cute rainbow item to “support the queer community,” than do the research to support a local LGBTQ+ organization.
Rainbow Washing
This is once again where transgender, gender non-conforming, and QPOC are left behind within the queer community. From the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, transgender people are twice as likely to be unemployed as the typical person in the U.S. In addition, 90% of people surveyed reported harassment, mistreatment, or discrimination while working. The murder of transgender people is incredibly high and is not decreasing. More than two dozen transgender people were murdered in 2018, almost entirely transwomen of color. Pinkwashing covers all of these statistics, and more than that these lived experiences, with a pretty rainbow and moves money from advocacy and direct services that saves lives to Fortune 500 CEO’s pockets.
Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien; Viccky Gutierrez; Tonya Harvey; Celine Walker; Phylicia Mitchell; Zakaria Fry; Amia Tyrae Berryman; Sasha Wall; Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon; Nino Fortson; Antash'a English; Gigi Pierce; Cathalina Christina James; Diamond Stephens; Keisha Wells; Sasha Garden; Dejanay Stanton; Vontashia Bell; Shantee Tucker; London Moore; Nikki Enriquez; Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier; Tydie Dansbury; Kelly Stough
Throughout the Pride movement there has been a variety of alternatives and counters to the mainstream Pride events. One of the first events occurred in Chicago in 1992. ACT UP disrupted the Pride march with a die-in to call attention to the lack of AIDS epidemic support. From then a variety of groups have protested Pride marches across the world for a variety of reasons, some examples include:
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San Francisco, 2012: OccuPride coalition calling for “Community Not Commodity”
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Washington D.C., 2013: protest against Wells Fargo
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Chicago, 2015: #blackoutpride
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New Zealand, 2016: No Pride in Prisons
Pride Protests and 'Other' Marches
The Dyke March has served as an alternative, rather than positioning themselves as a resistance, to the mainstream Pride marches since 1993. The Dyke March has held true to the political roots of Pride. They refuse to register for permits, claiming the First Amendment right to protest. The march has no floats and is comprised of marches holding signs led by a banner and drummers. There are no barriers on the sidewalks and anyone is free to join. The march relies on volunteer marshals who keep march moving and block street crossings.
The Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) was formed in early 2018 to protest the corporatization and mismanagement of NYC Pride by Heritage of Pride. They are organizing a civil rights march as an opposition march to NYC Pride on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Their vision for a march includes: “a celebration of the hard fought victories of the last half century; a commitment to the ongoing fight for LGBTQIATS+ rights worldwide; a March that highlights the most marginalized members of our community; a protest that recognizes the powerful legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion; a March that welcomes all — ’off the sidewalks, into the streets’”
Image Credits in Order: Allthatsinteresting.com; Hornet.com; Artspaper.org; Mashable.com; ABC; Forbes; Topshop; CNN; Timeout.com