Open Letter from the LGBTQIA+ Community Regarding Police at Melbourne Pride
By: Pride In Protest
Tags: Pride, BlackLivesMatter, Pride Parade, LGBT Rights, Defundthepolice

To the board of Midsumma and organisers of the Melbourne Pride March,

We oppose the inclusion of the Sheriff’s Office and Victoria Police in the Melbourne Pride March. We call on the board to ban police and corrections officers from Pride and other Midsumma events.

Why do we need to cut ties with police?

Police pose a risk to the safety of many LGBTQIA+ community members, particularly First Nations people, African-Australians, people of colour, poor people, sex workers, people with disability and trans and gender diverse people. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has shown that Black people are disproportionately policed, subject to violence and over-incarcerated, leading to the crisis of Black Deaths in Custody in Australia.

Police continue to have unfettered power to use violence against the community with zero accountability. To expect people who have survived police violence to march with their oppressors, denies their right to justice and safety at Melbourne Pride. Inviting police to march actively excludes the most marginalised in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Furthermore, there is a long history of police violence against LGBTQIA+ people. Just last year, they breached a trans woman’s privacy by leaking her mugshot to the press and Victoria Police’s toxic culture has driven gay officers to suicide. During COVID-19 and previously, there has been clear evidence of discriminatory racial profiling of African-Australians in Melbourne by police.

As the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the ongoing campaign to Stop Black Deaths in Custody has illustrated, policing is rooted in colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In Victoria, 24 Aboriginal people have died in custody since 1991 but no-one has ever been held criminally responsible.

In fact, in 233 years of colonial occupation of this land, there has never been a conviction of any police or correctional officer for the murder of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person in custody, let alone accountability or justice for families and communities affected by these deaths. Midsumma cannot continue to collaborate with such a violent institution if it wants to truly celebrate equality, diversity and Queer Pride.

What can we do?

We reject the idea that we should invite corrective services and police into our spaces. Police participation in Pride has more to do with exploiting our community for good PR than any change to the systemic racism, queerphobia and transphobia embedded in the criminal legal system. We may not be able to control police intervention into our events and communities, but we can refuse to collaborate with them.

We must publicly speak out against the violence of policing and stand in solidarity with family members and communities harmed by police brutality and deaths in custody. We must actively ban police from our events and prioritise the physical and emotional safety of communities most impacted by the prison-industrial complex.

There is growing consensus, from Auckland to New York City, that police are no longer welcome to pinkwash their violence with rainbows and glitter. Cutting ties with police will significantly improve the Melbourne Pride March and Midsumma Festival by prioritising the safety of First Nations people, standing in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and putting political pressure on police regarding racism, Black Deaths in Custody and police brutality.

Pride should be a community-focused event

We believe that Melbourne Pride, and Midsumma Festival more broadly, should be about community and not the interests of police or the state government. It is a disgrace to the tradition of queer liberation that grassroots groups, trade unions, community services and LGBTQIA+ organisations who are the backbone of Queer liberation, have been pushed out of Pride by violent institutions like the police.

We no longer want to march surrounded by our oppressors, including exploitative corporations like AGL that destroy our planet, for-profit businesses and banks like NAB and AML Risk Management, and political parties and politicians who have repeatedly passed legislation to limit our access to gender-affirming healthcare and Safe Schools. This corporatisation and pink-washing reduces Pride to a PR campaign to make money off our struggle.

We are sending you this letter to show you how the LGBTQIA+ community feels and to start a conversation. That is why we call on the Midsumma board and management to: