As the Pride parade rolled through the streets of Washington, D.C., earlier this month, a group of more than 20 activists entered the parade route through a barricade and quickly unfurled banners with phrases like “war profiteers out of Pride” and “queer as is Free Palestine.” They stood with linked arms to stop the parade in protest when a group of marchers in military uniforms shoved through their line.
“The police were already violently grabbing us pretty much as soon as we came in, but we were able to hold that line for at least five minutes, and that’s when the police started ripping banners out of people’s hands,” a queer Palestinian organizer who spoke to Prism anonymously recounted. “There was a lot of inappropriate touching of people’s chests. There was a specific targeting of one of our activists who was using a cane and another one who was using a walker.”
The demonstration ended with all of the activists pushed to the side of the route against metal barricades.
LGBTQIA+ anti-genocide activists are boycotting or disrupting Pride activities in cities across the U.S., including Boston, Denver, New Orleans, and Philadelphia, to protest the organizers’ complicity through corporate funders that support Israel, partnership with the police, and silence on a ceasefire. These actions are part of the long history of Pride—a tradition rooted in protest and disruption, beginning with the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969 against police violence and oppression.
Mx. Yaffa, a trans Palestinian poet and activist and executive director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, said that activists often try other tactics for months before ending up at the decision to disrupt a parade.
“The Prides that have been disrupted are the ones [whose organizers] haven’t been willing to have any of these conversations the last eight months, who haven’t divested, who are still willing to accept money from pro-genocide organizations, who are continuing larger-scale partnerships with the police, who have caused immense harm within our community—which is not something that started after Oct. 7,” they said. “There is a longer legacy of us disrupting and organizing against Pride, both for things like Black Lives Matter, for Indigenous rights, for trans rights, but also for Palestine historically prior to Oct. 7.”
A group of activists started talks with Capital Pride leaders in Washington, D.C., in March about their demands to cut ties with weapons manufacturers and to make a public statement calling for a ceasefire. Organizers told Prism that Capital Pride refused to meet the demands, prompting activists to launch a petition that earned support from those who have worked with or performed for Capital Pride.
When Capital Pride representatives didn’t contact them again after the publication of the petition, the activists said, they made plans to disrupt the June 8 parade.
Xaytun Ennasr, a trans Palestinian artist and community organizer who was also part of the group that disrupted the Capital Pride Parade, told Prism it was Orwellian and dystopian to see LGBTQIA+ people cheer for the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and military organizations at the parade.
“We need to call evil out when we see it,” Ennasr said. “Our feelings clearly don’t matter to the organizers. Not only our feelings, our very lives do not matter to the organizers. So what we’re doing is that we are making ourselves heard. We’re making ourselves present, and we are not allowing them to use us as a tool in their slaughter.”
It was not the first time protesters had disrupted Capital Pride. In 2017, No Justice No Pride disrupted the parade route over their unmet demands for Capital Pride to bar corporations that inflict harm on historically marginalized LGBTQIA+ people, end its endorsement of the police, and take a strong position against state violence. The sponsors that year included weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman.
“I think it just goes to show that the connection of what they were disrupting for and the fact that we disrupted for the liberation of Palestine, it’s all interconnected,” the anonymous organizer said. She also drew the connection that the Metropolitan Police Department has a long history of receiving training directly from the Israeli military, as do police departments in many other cities. Capital Pride did not not immediately return Prism’s request for comment.
Activists disrupted the Pride parades in Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle protesting police and corporate involvement in 2017, 2018, and 2019 as well.
When Pride organizers have not agreed to cut ties with harmful corporations or the police, LGBTQIA+ communities in some cities have created separate Pride activities. In New York City, the Reclaim Pride Coalition has been running an annual Queer Liberation March since 2019 on the same day as the NYC Pride Parade.
Mama Ganuush, a Palestinian African trans drag artist, is boycotting San Francisco Pride, slated for June 30, and encouraged LGBTQIA+ people looking for community to turn to the many alternative events, from Black Pride, Trans March, IndigiPride, and Dyke March, which happen annually, to one-off pro-Palestine events happening this year, including a Queer & Trans March for Palestinian Liberation to be held on the same day as the San Francisco Pride Parade.
“I don’t feel safe, and I don’t feel proud to walk in Pride as a Palestinian,” Mama Ganuush said, referencing the San Francisco Police Department’s history of training with the IDF, pro-Israel Grand Marshal Billy Porter, pro-Israel floats, and certain corporate sponsors.
“Me walking in Pride means normalizing Pride as a true protest, which this Pride is not,” Mama Ganuush said. “It is a queer and trans version of an Independence Day March or a Superbowl Parade.”
Mx. Yaffa also will not be participating in San Francisco Pride.
“The biggest threat to my existence right now in the Bay Area as a queer and trans Palestinian is not cis, straight right-wing leaders, it’s actually Pride councils,” they said. “Until that is accounted for, we can’t actually be on the same page because you’ve been investing in my genocide essentially for decades, and you haven’t even stopped.”
San Francisco Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford and President Nguyen Pham issued a statement on June 4 that said corporate and government funding is needed for a large-scale free event and that those sponsors have no influence over programming content or organizational stances.
“While we encourage resistance against oppressive systems and governments that fail to recognize our humanity as queer people, we cannot achieve liberation by fighting other queer and trans people,” Ford and Pham said in the statement.
Mama Ganuush said disrupting the parade would take a lot of energy and time to plan, so they are choosing to boycott the event.
But the D.C. organizer who disrupted Capital Pride said she could not let business continue as usual when a multi-million dollar organization is using queer identities to justify militarism. But she also didn’t think a separate march was necessary.
“Palestinian liberation is intrinsically tied to queer liberation, to Black liberation, to LANDBACK,” she said. “So every single time there’s a pro-Palestine rally or march in D.C., that is a queer liberation march as well.”
