Marching with Pride? Debates on Uniformed Police Participating in Vancouver’s LGBTQ Pride Parade

ABSTRACT

How do activists defend their opinions regarding uniformed police being celebrated in Pride parades? Twelve semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in Vancouver, Canada with six people who supported the celebration of uniformed police and six people unsupportive of uniformed police in Vancouver’s Pride parade. Findings show four ways people frame their stance on uniformed police in Vancouver’s Pride parade. Those who support a police presence justify their stance with two arguments: historical progress and the transnational versus local resonance of social movements. Activists who do not support the police invoke two different arguments: memory of historical marginalization, and pinkwashing. These findings show that people who support the police in Pride parades focus on positive social change that the LGBTQ community has achieved, while those who are against focus on the specific ongoing oppression of members of the LGBTQ community by the police.

KEYWORDS:

• Pride parades
• LGBTQ
• police
• pinkwashing
• Black Lives Matter
• intersectionality

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Becki Ross and Dr. Amin Ghaziani for their unwavering support throughout this project. Thank you to the editor, anonymous reviewers, and everyone who provided feedback on the manuscript. I am also thankful to my Mom, Dad, Joanie, and friends for their unconditional love and guidance. And most importantly, thank you to the people I interviewed for sharing your experiences on such an important topic. Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge that this research project was situated on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations at the University of British Columbia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.