When we think of the historical context of Pride, we most commonly remember Stonewall – when in
1969 trans and queer community members including street youth, people of colour, sex workers and
drag queens fought back against police trying to raid the Stonewall Inn located in New York. While this
is highlighted as the beginning of the queer rights movement, this wasn’t a one-off event: raids against
bars frequented by queer people in the 1960s were routine. In her book Miss Major Speaks, Miss Major
describes the way those inside the pub assumed it was just another raid, only this time everyone had
had enough of police violence and oppression plaguing their communities. Despite days of resistance
at Stonewall, in which she describes queer+ people fighting for their lives, she recognises not a lot has
changed for her and her gurls. Many of those who played a key role in the initial riots, were nowhere to
be seen at the parade celebrating it the next year – likely due to respectability politics which saw
predominantly gay, white cis men pushed to the foreground, eager to be seen in the same way as their
heterosexual peers. This meant those less welcomed by the community (sex workers, transfems, drag
queens, addicts) went back to sleeping on the street, dying earlier than their more privileged peers.
Across the globe, police continue to respond to our communities with disproportionate violence – used
as tools of the state to repress and silence us. It is in their interest to quell resistance as it begins –
whether that is by clamping down on protests or by setting new laws and making examples of those
standing up for their rights (like those unfairly imprisoned for their part in the Bristol riots in 2021) or
by collecting information from communities as they come together in solidarity to support one another.
The police love to collect information – which is why they will always film people at events, and ask for
the names of people involved in organising the event. They will use this information to build profiles of
those involved – where they live, who they know and other identifiable information about them.
Queer and trans people are more likely to be unfairly policed compared to their cis/het peers. Not only
this but we are more likely to experience insecure housing and income, due to facing difficulties
finding accepting spaces to live and work in. When trans and queer people are arrested or find
themselves in the prison industrial complex (for example psych wards, secure children’s homes, young
offenders, the bail and probation systems as well as prisons), we find ourselves more likely to
experience assault and profiling. The prison system is a space where trans people face systematic
misgendering and institutional sexual violence, placed in prisons where they are unsafe, or forced to
medically detransition while inside.
Prisons are built on anti-Blackness and white supremacy – originally built as reform but now used to
justify state surveillance and attacks on our civil liberties. Queer people with multiple marginalised
identities ie travellers, people of colour, Black people, disabled people – including those with mental
health problems, people who are NFA (have No Fixed Address) are even more likely to enter the prison
industrial complex, and face many barriers if they are released. Trans and queer youth also frequently
find themselves trapped in prison systems – facing insecure housing or no alternative to their unsafe
living situations, turning to survival crime when a stable income is inaccessible or impossible to find.
The expansion of prisons and the funding they continue to receive diverts funds away from our
communities and towards our oppression. Fueled by capitalism and the government’s scramble to
silence dissent, prisons continue to expand – creating more jobs and funding more businesses.
Businesses like McDonalds and Starbucks use prison labour to make their uniforms or other material
goods. Those who work in prison do not earn minimum wage, making as little as a few pounds per
week – told that this work will help them “reform” or gain employment on the outside. These very same
companies capitalise on Pride month every June, tokenising their queer staff or coming out with Pride
month products to make more money. Ultimately big businesses will oppress queer workers, stamping
out those who organise in unions or policing the bathrooms their staff use while on shift, refusing to
hire trans+ people because we are considered “too difficult”. Through this they are able to hoard
money, often making billions of pounds each year, funding companies that fund fossil fuels, weapons
and bombs for colonialist powers and political campaigns that harm our communities.
This page is available as a downloadable pdf for printing as a leaflet: