![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gravityeyelidsvia http://ift.tt/2DhRjgW:
You can learn how not to be a LGBT ally by looking at what happened at Glasgow Pride:
femsaphique:
So while this article obviously isn’t perfectly written, it has some good points. Such as the fact that police are now attacking us for hate speech, while letting bigots picket us.
I’ll take some parts of the article I think are relevant.
One of this group held a placard with the slogan “Faggots fight fascism”.
According to the police event commander, Chief Inspector Alan Bowater: “Numerous complaints were made from members of the public and organisers of the event in reference to the banner, which was described as offensive and inappropriate.” This apparently justified both the police response and charging that individual with a homophobic hate crime.
Compare and contrast this action with the “quiet word” that police had with some Christian placard-wavers who really were homophobic: whose presence, despite causing alarm, and being described as intimidating by several marchers, was still OK.
Or as many have parsed that: bigoted Christian free speech good; radical queer speech, bad.
As always, it is not the initial incident but the response that matters. Police are welcome at Pride. But it takes a degree of monumental stupidity to fail to see how them leading Pride – in uniform! – is never going to fly.
Ditto taking down LGBT protesters. Ditto policing LGBT language.
The feeling, from talking to many there and in Scotland, is that this represents a significant setback to police-LGBT relations. Not fatal. But not small either.
There is now an on-going social media spat between the organisers and many in the LGBT community. The NUS, Equality Network and Scottish Trans Alliance have condemned police actions.
The real problem, though, is police insistence that they did nothing wrong. Which is great media strategy, but awful if you want to be friends and allies.
Is this really what we want our events to be? Us calling ourselves faggots means we need to be assaulted and arrested for bigotry, but people can say we can go to Hell and it’s all fine?
The police come to police our identities, our language, and our politics, and we’re meant to expect they’re there to protect us? Once we do anything to challenge anything, some of us get put in head-lock and get arrested, for hate crime against ourselves.
While we’re wearing rainbow clothing we are read as bigots, meanwhile there’s Christian fundamentalists calling for our extermination down the street - apparently not discriminating or being hateful.
The way pride events are organised in the UK seriously needs to be challenged and changed. Because the way us faggots and trans activists are treated is disgusting.
Say whatever you want about slurs or what language is and isn’t offensive, but when people endanger others over reclaiming words, by calling police over and complaining, then you’re actually taking it way too far.
(Your picture was not posted)
You can learn how not to be a LGBT ally by looking at what happened at Glasgow Pride:
femsaphique:
So while this article obviously isn’t perfectly written, it has some good points. Such as the fact that police are now attacking us for hate speech, while letting bigots picket us.
I’ll take some parts of the article I think are relevant.
One of this group held a placard with the slogan “Faggots fight fascism”.
According to the police event commander, Chief Inspector Alan Bowater: “Numerous complaints were made from members of the public and organisers of the event in reference to the banner, which was described as offensive and inappropriate.” This apparently justified both the police response and charging that individual with a homophobic hate crime.
Compare and contrast this action with the “quiet word” that police had with some Christian placard-wavers who really were homophobic: whose presence, despite causing alarm, and being described as intimidating by several marchers, was still OK.
Or as many have parsed that: bigoted Christian free speech good; radical queer speech, bad.
As always, it is not the initial incident but the response that matters. Police are welcome at Pride. But it takes a degree of monumental stupidity to fail to see how them leading Pride – in uniform! – is never going to fly.
Ditto taking down LGBT protesters. Ditto policing LGBT language.
The feeling, from talking to many there and in Scotland, is that this represents a significant setback to police-LGBT relations. Not fatal. But not small either.
There is now an on-going social media spat between the organisers and many in the LGBT community. The NUS, Equality Network and Scottish Trans Alliance have condemned police actions.
The real problem, though, is police insistence that they did nothing wrong. Which is great media strategy, but awful if you want to be friends and allies.
Is this really what we want our events to be? Us calling ourselves faggots means we need to be assaulted and arrested for bigotry, but people can say we can go to Hell and it’s all fine?
The police come to police our identities, our language, and our politics, and we’re meant to expect they’re there to protect us? Once we do anything to challenge anything, some of us get put in head-lock and get arrested, for hate crime against ourselves.
While we’re wearing rainbow clothing we are read as bigots, meanwhile there’s Christian fundamentalists calling for our extermination down the street - apparently not discriminating or being hateful.
The way pride events are organised in the UK seriously needs to be challenged and changed. Because the way us faggots and trans activists are treated is disgusting.
Say whatever you want about slurs or what language is and isn’t offensive, but when people endanger others over reclaiming words, by calling police over and complaining, then you’re actually taking it way too far.
(Your picture was not posted)
