Police using Gay Pride events to sanitise their public image?

[MajorMitchell]

The 2024 Sydney Gay Pride Mardis Gras events had a controversy regarding New South Wales Police participation as "party goers", dancing, marching in Gay Pride march etc whilst wearing NSW Police uniforms, which they had been doing for a few years.
Many Gay Rights activists find the participation of the NSW Police in Gay Pride events offensive, given the history of oppression of Gay Rights, bashings, killings of Gay men by NSW Police this is understandable in my opinion.

It's a global trend, Police are using Gay Pride events to sanitise their public image.

What do people think of this?

[Jamiet99uk]

In this particular case wasn't there also the fact that a serving NSW police officer had just murdered two gay men?

[Jamiet99uk]

Like not just historically in the distant past, but in the last year or two?

[MajorMitchell]

A NSW Police officer has been charged with 2 counts of murder, the victims were two gay men.
I don't regard that tragedy as being directly connected with NSW Police institutionalised oppresion/ discrimination of LGBTQI people and other groups, eg First Nation Australians

There is a dark history of the NSW Police.
Sydney was corrupt and violent from first European settlement.

What passes me off, gets me angry are things like
NSW Police Commissioner Jaren Webb describing NSW Police brutality in mid 1970s towards gatmy men activists in Paddington Sydney, the founding events, protests that have evolved into Mardis Gras as:

"Police manhandled a few protesters "

Blood was shed, it was violent, I was there in late 1970s, got bashed myself by a corrupt fat Darlinghurst NSW Police officer.

[orathaic]

Police and corporations using these events to make themselves look good is not particularly new. Is there a queer counter movement protesting this?

Seems likely that anarchists would hang around these kinds of groups, but I don't know anything about anarchist in Australia.

[MajorMitchell]

The involvement as participants in the Sydney Gay Pride Mardi Gras parade has been a cause of discontent amongst older Gay Rights activists for several years.

Many who now live around Australia have given up going to Sydney for the Mardis Gras because of the intrusive presence of NSW Police as participants in uniform.


The double murder did trigger a controversial withdrawal of the invitation to NSW Police to participate as party goers thennthe reversal, an invitation to participate but not in Police uniforms, the compromise.

I want the NSW Police to move forward, be a better Police force.
But I detest tokenistic gaywashing to sanitise the public image of NSW Police.

I composed and sent a long email to the NSW PZolice Commissioner Karen Webb about this issue earlier this year when the controversial double murder had occurred
With positive suggestions.

Got a reply.
Short typical bureaucrats safe reply.
Will they genuinely consider to those suggestions? I doubt that they will.
Will my effort cause the NSW Police to change the tiniest amount? I doubt that.

[MajorMitchell]

You are right Orathaic, corporations are using gaywashing like they use greenwashing environmental image

[MajorMitchell]

The difference is that whilst business has had a history of discrimination, few businesses have the violent history of Oppression of gay men, Governments used the police and state apparatus for that stuff

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I can't speak to the psychic wound of police brutality against gays, but in 2024 it doesn't seem strategic to push away cops from these events.

A parade needs to be policed anyhow — better they present as a welcoming and pro-LGBT organization at the event instead of just being cold authorities on the sidelines.

Many horrible injustices by cops against LGBT folks are still in loving memory and it's especially bad if the police are revising or downplaying that history. But I very strongly suspect that, in 2024, the police in Australia, Canada, UK, etc. are *much* more likely to prevent hate crimes against LGBT folks than to commit them. That's part of why they're at Pride in the first place.

I feel especially bad for gay cops. I don't think being a gay police officer in the 2020s is some kind of Uncle Tom-style offense. Gay representation in policing should be seen as a huge victory for a minority that was recently excluded from and persecuted by the police force.

Is it really rainbow washing if the police today actually are pro-LGBT? This feels different than when my bank puts a rainbow flag on their website. The police are physically there protecting Pride, they're celebrating their own gay officers, and they're making it clear that the force of the state now serves this minority rather than punishing it.

[orathaic]

The assumption is that they are needed, Pride events can't police themselves, or don't have their own arrangements.

If a gay cop wants to take off their uniform and attend pride, that is sligthly different (though I know some would oppose that aswell). Strategically there is definitely a Queer and anarchist section of the community which sees pushing cíos out as a good thing regardless of other consequences.

But then they would prefer to abolish all policing, and the subsequent abuse of power.

I doubt police forces will prevent hate crimes, maybe they will punish those crimes after the fact, maybe not. Depends on the particular crime and particular police force.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Really appreciate your viewpoint here, it's very well articulated and I find all this fascinating.

I think you and I may disagree just on the usefulness of policing in general. I think any large group of people in public probably benefits from a touch of policing, especially if there's drinking involved. At a minimum someone with authority probably needs to be redirecting traffic.

Pride remains political and it might not be safe for counter-protestors and Pride participants to interact without an intermediary. I do think that police presence acts as a deterrent for some bad behaviour, which in this case might include homophobic violence. I would expect cops to be on their absolute best behaviour at a Pride event in Canada (where they would be under intense scrutiny), but I can't speak for other places.

LGBT folks pay taxes and serve on police forces, I wouldn't want to exclude them from what I view as the potential benefits of law enforcement. That, of course, doesn't mean the police need to be marching in the parade with their uniforms on if that's not what the community wants.

And if that's what a community prefers who am I to judge? But how would such a consensus be reached? What if a minority within the minority are happy to support LGBT folks in uniform? It strikes me as unfortunate that someone can't be proudly LGBT and proud of their profession simultaneously. This worldview seems to circumscribe what LGBT-ness is and assign a political valence to it that I assume many LGBT folks don't share.

I'm not LGBT but I fall into another minority category and my observation is that historically wronged groups tend to over-valorize their most radical members and those with the loudest grievances. The victim viewpoint becomes the only "authentic" one. Members with heterodox ideas risk getting slurred as traitors to their own kind. A certain type of white normie liberal will cheer from the sidelines and help to reinforce the idea that there's no diversity within diversity, but only as long as it makes them feel better about their privilege and/or let's them use the supposed "authenticity" of minority grievances to advance their own preferred policy agenda.

[MajorMitchell]

There's separate issues.
Providing public security is the role.of the Police.

Police engaging in Gay Pride events as individuals put of uniform whilst mot on duty, in, as private citizens


Then there's what's causing the problems, this:
Police engaging in Gay Pride events as participants (not for public safety policing) in uniforms and the police force publicising their involvement to improve their public image.
If a Police force is going to do this and it has the history of Australian state Police forces then they have to be honest about their dark past, own it and engage in genuine reforms.
No sanitisation and disingenuous minimalisation, misleading euphemisms

[orathaic]

To he clear, there are also two groups (at least) and they may be conflated at times.

The LGBTQ+ community and the Queer community.

Being Queer as a political alignment and subset of LGBTQ+ people is more closely aligned to anarchist thought. The reject the notion of marriage equality, because they oppose marriage in all forms (though the majority don't begrudge other LGBT folks getting married). That is just the most obvious political position of this group.

Naturally this anti-authoritarian stance extends to their opinion of cops (ACAB). And the history of police violence is not going to help neutralise this position.

There is a strong conservative streak in some parts of the LGBTQ+ community. Many conservative gay men only came out after the success of the wider movement made it mainstream and popular enough to be publicly gay.

They would not identify as Queer and would be staunchly pro-cops at pride (I imagine). Ireland's second to most recent Taoiseach (now retired) was among that group. Son of an immigrant family, doctor, centre right politician, and only came out (publicly at least) when it was politically convienant (and helped win the marriage equality debate i imagine). And I have met anarchists at anti-posie Parker protests who would be example of the other political position, and considered Queer allies.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I really doubt that it's fair to denigrate conservative gay men as non-political laggards who are merely riding on the coat tails of Queer activists, or as a group that uses their gay status cynically only when it benefits them.

But otherwise your post gets to the crux of my question.

LGBTQIA2S+ is a hugely divergent group that, unlike some other minorities, is spread more-or-less evenly through the general population and who hold a variety of political beliefs.

I'm interested in how, as a matter of practice, a group like this can decide whether (and under what conditions) to invite cops to Pride?