This year, Fierté Sudbury Pride made the difficult decision to cancel the Pride March.
City officials told us that marching without police was not an option, even with a safety plan similar to what is used by many groups who march without police. No matter what decision we made, we knew that many of Sudbury’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community would disagree, as policing is a very contentious issue for our community, and the Pride march is the most visible and well-attended queer event every year.
Since Sudbury’s first March in 1997, the police in attendance have gone from imposing figures watching us uncomfortably from the sidelines to smiling, dancing and even wearing rainbows on their uniforms. A lot of people see this as a sign of things getting better.
In this month’s column, I will explain why it is so important for many people in the queer community to march without police presence.
While the board voted in favour of cancelling the march, the opinions expressed are my own and not representative of the entire board of Fierte Sudbury Pride, which is made up of 10 people who hold nuanced views of the role of policing.
Police at the Podium
The first time I attended Sudbury Pride’s Opening Ceremonies was in 2016. The chief of police was invited up to the podium to speak in front of a crowd composed almost entirely of professionally dressed people who seemed to be attending on behalf of their place of employment. Several people turned their backs or walked away as he approached the podium.
The chief of police said that Sudbury police had a great relationship with the local 2SLGBTQIA+ community, although I questioned the strength of this relationship when he got the acronym wrong, saying that “A” was for “Ally,” when it is actually for “Asexual.“
While I can understand the average person making a mistake like this, it was a pretty flagrant error from someone who’d been given such a significant platform at a Pride event. I noticed something else was missing; I didn’t hear any queer voices confirming this supposed great relationship. In fact, there were very few people in attendance who looked visibly queer, which is surprising considering that most Pride events look like a sea of rainbows and sparkles.
When I started to look into why queer folks were not attending a Pride event, several people told me they felt as though some parts of Pride Week were not planned for them. Some queer folks even told me that Pride Week as a whole didn’t feel like it was designed for them.
When I dug around some more, they said that events seemed to be tailored to middle class, white gay men and lesbians. They felt left out of Pride — and part of the reason was police presence.
Who feels safer around police and who does not?
Police feel safe for a lot of people. Many of us tell our children that if they ever get lost, they need to find a police officer to help them. But how many also feel very uncomfortable when they’re driving and notice a police car behind them, even if they are not doing anything wrong?
I couldn’t even imagine the feeling of being at Pride, which is designed to be a space where the 2SLGBTQIA+ community feels safe to be themselves, and seeing reminders of the worst day of my life or one of my biggest fears. We know that police do not necessarily feel safe for a lot of people, including;
- Black folks, Indigenous people, and other racialized groups who are policed more harshly and in different ways than white people;
- survivors of the mental health systems, who are often brought to the hospital in handcuffs when experiencing a mental health crisis;
- people who use substances and people dealing with addictions;
- sex workers;
- people who are homeless or precariously housed; and
- people who have had contact with the criminal justice system, even as survivors of crimes.
Each and every one of these groups contains queer people.
Policing the 2SLGBTQ+ Community
Last month, I wrote about the history of Pride, including the arrests that took place at Stonewall and in the Toronto Bathhouse Raids. But talking about Pride in this way may leave the impression that the problems with policing queer communities is a thing of the past.
Statistics about police, court systems and the Black community are well-documented and prominent in the media. But what is less often discussed is the similarities between that data and the experiences of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, particularly with people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming.
Data from Canada is not available, but studies in the United States have shown that queer people are more likely to be stopped by police, arrested, charged and convicted than their cis and hetero peers. Canadian research has shown that homophobia and transphobia are rampant in the legal system.
Policing is fundamentally incompatible with being an ally to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in this political climate. There are 66 countries where it’s illegal to be gay. Anti-trans legislation and policies become more popular throughout the United States with 566 bills currently being tracked by human rights organizations.
Similar legislation is now being introduced in Canada. When legislation is passed, it is the job of police to enforce it. Should these laws spread to Ontario, it will be the job of police to enforce them, too.
Would a local police officer consider enacting these kinds of unjust, discriminatory laws, such as arresting a trans person for using the bathroom that matches their gender identity? If there’s even a hint of doubt, they should not be leading a march for gay rights and queer liberation.
Pride and Greater Sudbury Police Services
We know that police in Sudbury are not well-trained in working with queer and trans people. For many officers, the extent of this training is a brief video.
Locally, trans people report misgendering and use of deadnames by police. Trans folks are often afraid to drive or travel if their appearance or gender doesn’t match their driver’s licence in case they are pulled over.
Instead of trying to fix this in the last municipal budget, the Police Services Board voted to cut a proposed Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion position while increasing its police force by 10 officers.
The Greater Sudbury Police Services have allowed the transphobic harassment of Fierté Sudbury Pride board members to continue since 2019, even publishing a statement claiming to be our allies but saying there was nothing they could do.
Last month, a well-intentioned officer who I reported the continued harassment to told me he had never spoken to someone like me before — meaning a trans person. How can they be expected to investigate transphobia if they can’t even talk to us?
After the aforementioned Opening Ceremonies in 2016, Fierté Sudbury Pride talked to police and asked them to attend Pride events out of uniform and without weapons. They were invited to come and listen to what the queer community needs in order to feel safe, and to work towards becoming allies to the queer community.
Sudbury Pride March 2023
The decision to cancel the Pride March was not an easy one, because it is so important to be out and visible in our continued fight for queer liberation.
After the announcement was made, I kept hearing that Pride was putting the needs of Black people ahead of the needs of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, as if only Black folks have a contentious relationship to policing, and as if Black folks can’t also be queer and trans. But they are not two separate groups, which is why solidarity across communities is so important.
The queer community is represented in just about every nationality, every race and ethnicity, every disability, every language group, and every age. If we outright ignore the needs or deny the experiences of marginalised folks — especially if it’s so the most privileged members of our community can have fun — we are ignoring and excluding a section of our own community, and it could be the people that need us most.
Dr. Laur O'Gorman (they/them) is the co-chair of Fierté Sudbury Pride, former professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality studies, parent, writer, and activist. They currently work in the field of mental health. Let Me Be Perfectly Queer is a monthly column about issues that impact 2SLGBTQ+ people in Sudbury as well as their friends, family, neighbours and co-workers; why queer issues matter to everybody. O’Gorman uses the word “queer” as an umbrella term that includes understandings of gender, sexuality, romance, and families outside of what is most common in our culture. If you have any questions relating to 2SLGBTQ+ issues, please send them to [email protected].
