Afterparty: Community PRIDE Coalition

Type: Social

This Event:
* Is LGBTQ hosted
* Has LGBTQ content
* May be of interest to the LGBTQ community

The Community Pride coalition, formerly known as Alternate Pride, would like to share its appreciation and thanks with OutReach LGBT Community Center for their decision to not allow police contingents at this year’s Pride.

Through their newly released statement, OutReach has chosen to take this important, first step to give a meaningful apology, a promise to repair harm done to the most marginalized in our community, and an effort to engage in concrete actions that foster full inclusion and liberation for all LGBTQ+ individuals.

To our friends, supporters, collaborators, and comrades, we want to make it crystal clear that we have earned an important victory. We took a stand and demanded that OutReach rescind their invitation to the Madison Police Department, the University of Wisconsin Police Department, and Dane County Sheriff Mahoney, and we won.

In light of OutReach’s decision, Community Pride will march as a contingent in this year’s parade. We will continue our call to oppose police at Pride in future years and across the nation. We also will schedule an organizing meeting for all who want to join us next week. We know there will be backlash to this decision, and that is part of why it is important to march in the parade and defend this victory.

Following the parade, we will be celebrating our victory and pride at an after party at the Goodman Community Center from 6pm-8pm. We invite all in our community to join in on this Community Pride celebration. But there is so much more work to be done.

Queer and transgender people of color still experience silencing and erasure from our movement and fight for queer and trans liberation. QTPOC still face systemic racism and police brutality. Our movement, leaders, and advocacy and support organizations need to do better across the board.

Meetings will be organized and resumed in September to encourage deep reflections and conversations about race, privilege, and racism within the queer community. We invite all in our community to join in on these important discussions, which will hopefully guide our collective future actions towards justice and liberation. We would love to see everyone organizing together in the days ahead.

It is important that OutReach joins these crucial conversations. We also hope that OutReach will invite QTPOC to take the lead in organizing future Pride events. QTPOC lit the spark of our movement at the Stonewall Inn, and we need QTPOC to be at the center of our movement’s future. Without liberation for QTPOC, there cannot be liberation for all.

The police drove a divisive wedge into our vulnerable community. Now is the time for celebration of our victory, pride, and moving towards collective community healing.