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Kinks, not Cops, at Pride


If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and pay attention to Queer news you've probably already heard that drama has struck the SF Pride parade and its not even Pride Month yet.


The organization responsible for planning San Francisco's many Pride festivities, most recognizably the Pride Parade, is SFPride. SFPride announced on May 11th that off-duty police officers who march in the Pride Parade cannot be in uniform. To clear up some confusion (because God knows there's a lot of it right now) cops are not banned from San Francisco Pride.


The City and County of San Francisco require that an event that large have crowd control officers managing it so there will be on-duty uniformed law enforcement officers working throughout the weekend. They will be at the Parade and the many other SFPride events slatted for June 25th and 26th. Similarly, the Pride Parade has not banned people employed by the San Francisco Police Department or Sheriff's Office from marching in the Pride Parade. The rule is simply, if you are not on-duty working the parade and want march in the Pride Parade, you cannot be in uniform.


As someone with a less than favorable view of law enforcement as an institution, even I can admit that SFPride's initial announcement failed to emphasize some of those important details. So while I personally wouldn't be opposed to a blanket ban of all cops at Pride, that's not actually what SFPride is trying to implement.


Still, the reaction to SFPride's announcement has been predictably hyperbolic and calculated. San Francisco as an unearned reputation for left-wing progressivism. The country likes to straw man the city into a monolith of queer commies (GOD I WISH SAN FRANCISCO WAS A CITY FULL OF QUEER COMMIES!) but in reality it is the city that produces politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Gavin Newsom, V.P. Kamala Harris, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.


This city produces savvy and calculated centrists and maybe the occasional slightly left-of-center Democrat. Mayor London Breed is no different.


So when SFPride announced that off-duty officers would not be allowed to march in the Parade while in uniform, Mayor Breed announced that she'd be boycotting the parade. She explained that she saw this as an attack on LGBTQIA+ law enforcement officers and an action she couldn't cosign.


Now let's clarify, Mayor London Breed not exactly a cornerstone of the Parade. I think the San Francisco Transgender Cultural District put it best when they said Mayor Breed's role at the Pride Parade is "purely ceremonial" and that her job as "head of state" is to "sit on the damn float, and waive her hand, and [be] a symbol of LGBT inclusion and progress for the city at large." The Transgender District followed up that statement by saying, "Her decision to play political strategy at this moment, is frankly, stupid." Her decision and the Transgender District's reaction encompasses an important distinction.


Liberals love rainbows and Queer Eye. Leftists love liberation and reparations.


Liberals see Pride as a fun, colorful party and liberal politicians see it has a chance to win brownie-points with their political base. But at a time when Queer folx, especially our Trans comrades, are under relentless attack, the true meaning and origin of Pride is as important as ever and Pride is not a party, it is a protest.

There are genuine concerns that loss of privacy rights through the overturning of Roe v. Wade could lead the overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges and new prohibitions on same-sex marriage. There are over 30 states considering or have already passed bills which attack Trans-kids, restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare, and ostracize Trans-students. And there are almost 40 sates with bills on the floor or already passed that more broadly permit or protect the the ability to discriminate against the LGBTQIA+ community.


This is not a lighthearted moment in the national dialogue, this is a time of anxiety, depression, and anger for the LGBTQIA+ community. In this moment, we need to look to our legacy and our trailblazers for guidance, for comfort, and for strength.


This is why in response to Mayor Breed's decision to boycott the Pride Parade, the SF Transgender Cultural District has decided to boycott the Mayor's Pride Month Flag Raising Ceremony. On Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 1:00 PM, Mayor London Breed will be photographed raising the Pride Flag in front of City Hall at Civic Center. There will be all forms of media there for the photo opportunity as Mayor Breed puts on a performance of support to the Queer community... do with that information what you will but know the event is public and journalists love interviewing protestors (and the weather forecast says it'll be a beautiful day for some disruptive politics)...


So, why all the drama? Why the decision to prevent off-duty officers from marching. in uniform? Why all the boycotts?


Well, the national memory is often too short so it is too easy to forget the deeply abusive relationship the Queer community has with law enforcement. It is easy to look at San Francisco, the city of Harvey Milk and the Folsom Street Fair, with rose-tinted glasses. But the truth is the San Francisco Police Department is responsible for raids on gay bars and other safe spaces, the public humiliation of Queer folx through entrapment operations, and the harassment of Trans-folx who dressed as their genuine selves.


The police do not protect our community, they protect the status quo. For a long time the status quo has excluded our community and intentionally attacked our community, so as a result the police have also excluded and attacked our community.


June is Pride Month because of Stonewall. On June 28, 1969 in Greenwich Village at the Stonewall Inn there was a police raid. The gay bar had been denied a liquor license because of the community it served and being publicly Queer was still explicitly illegal in New York, this meant police raids were fairly common. Still, due to a combination of bribes and tip-offs, police raids typically happened early in the afternoon and with the owners prior knowledge. This meant the regular operation of the bar and the safe, open enjoyment of its patrons was generally unaffected by raids.


June 28th was different through. The raid happened in the early hours of the morning when the bar was packed. The brutality and harassment of officers against the gay, Trans, and Black patrons served as a catalyst. The community, tired of being literally beaten by the police, had turned to resistance and they were led by Black Trans Women. Now community leaders like Marsha P. Johnson where in the streets, publicly and loudly demanding their right to exist. Greenwich Village, a community built around Queer folx, turned into a hub of activism. Out of the Stonewall resistance the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activists Alliance, and the first Gay Pride marches were organized. These organizations were explicitly radical, they were Queer-liberationists but many were also committed police-abolitionists, anti-capitalists, and Black nationalists and Black Panthers. They joined causes like the New Left and defended leaders like Afeni Shakur Davis.


So, why no uniformed cops in the Pride Parade? Because Pride is a direct response to police brutality. The police don't get to co-op Pride as a means to whitewash and hide the role they've played in abusing, oppressing, arresting, and even murdering our community. These wounds are no where close to healed. Pride is a protest against the police and against a status quo that tells millions of people they are wrong to love who they love and be who they are.


Pride is supposed to be a safe space for our community and our community owes everything to the brave Trans Black Women to fought for it. Right now the murder rate against Trans Black Women is astronomically disproportionate and police are killing Black folx like its their job (probably because in a twisted way... it was and still is). Police do not keep Black folx or Queer folx safe. So while Mayor Breed may want cops in the Pride Parade because a photo-op with both a rainbow and an officer appeals to more demographics, "No cops at Pride" is not a knee-jerk reaction but instead a movement rooted in the deepest, truest understanding of what Pride was, is, and should be.


The dialogue of "No cops at Pride" comes up every year and every year it gets distorted. Twitter threads and blog posts (...oops...) add to the noise and amplify the wrong voices (...again oops...). And right alongside it, every year there is a dialogue over the role of sex and kink at Pride.


These conversations on the surface may seem disconnected, but scratch a little deeper and you recognize they are both conversations about who Pride is for, what does a "safe-space" mean, and how best do we preserve what Pride is supposed to be, a protest, while still making it inclusive to an ever-growing and diverse community.


I would suggest it is actually easier to reach a conclusion about cops at Pride than it is about kink. Cops don't make people safer, cops actively harm and traumatize many members of our community, and cops are directly oppositional to the tenants of Pride. So, "No cops at Pride." But on the other hand, kink, to me at least, is less clearcut.


Pride is about liberation. Liberation is not inherently sexual, the same way being Queer is not inherently sexual, but it's not not about being sexual either. Sexual liberation as a movement, as an idea, and as a practice is forever coupled with the movement for Queer liberation. The freedom to express one's sexuality is at the core of Pride.


But does that mean there needs to be a public display of sexuality at Pride? I would say yes.


I think hiding sexuality, covering it up and forcing behind closed doors does a disservice to everyone. That's a statement which shouldn't be controversial by the way. We need only look to places which enforce an abstinence-only education policy to know that obscuring and hiding sex hurts people. Places with abstinence-only education in schools have higher rates of teen pregnancy, higher rates of STIs/STDs, and more confusion over what constitutes consent. Experts have shown over and over again that withholding information about sex doesn't delay or prevent sex, it just prevents safe sex. Laura Lindberg, a research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, explained as much when she said that obscuring sex, "violates medical ethics and harms young people."


This harm is exponentially worse for Queer folx. Even in places with more expansive or comprehensive sex education, it is rare that Queer sex is a component of curriculum and rarer still that it is taught in a competent and educational way.


So, while Pride is not a classroom and maybe not a perfect avenue for exposure to Queer sex, it beats online porn, which is where a lot of teens are learning about it right now.


Still when I talk about including kink at Pride, I mean letting people dress authentically, I mean promoting safe-spaces to publicly participate in and share one's kinks, and I mean allowing organizations and individuals to openly talk about, share, and celebrate their kink communities.


Pride is about pushing back against a mainstream that isolates and shames people. That means we have to unapologetic about who we are, all of who we are. Sex is, for a lot of people, a part of that identity. By excluding that from Pride, we create another space that isolates and shames people. That of course works inversely too, those on the asexual and aromantic spectrums are also important members of our community and need to feel just has safe and celebrated at Pride as everyone else.


This is why Pride cannot be a cleaned up, corporate photo opportunity to Mayors and cops. Our community is messy, it's full of contradictions, and is not a singular monolith with any one opinion or attitude towards any topic: our community is human. Sex is human, sex-aversion is human. Both need a platform and a space at Pride. What isn't human is the dehumanization of Queer folx, and that's what the cops represent.


That's why I want to see kinks, not cops, at Pride.

Tonight's selection pairs best with smoky but still sweet Stonewall Cocktail.

















 
 
 

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