We need to stop whitewashing Pride Month

Morven Loh LGBTQ+, pride month, racism, Whitewashing

Pride is about amplifying LGBTQ+ voices and celebrating our queer selves, but we need to stop whitewashing the narrative

Queer people of colour are continuously excluded and marginalised from a movement that was started by Black queer trans women. In order to be truly intersectional in our celebrations during Pride Month and every month, we need to stop white-washing Pride.

“Marsha P. Johnson could be perceived as the most marginalised of people — black, queer, gender-nonconforming, poor… You might expect a person in such a position to be fragile, brutalised, beaten down. Instead, Marsha had this joie de vivre, a capacity to find joy in a world of suffering. She channeled it into political action, and did it with a kind of fierceness, grace and whimsy, with a loopy, absurdist reaction to it all.” – Susan Stryker

The history of the Stonewall Riots

Every year during Pride Month we go all out to celebrate the achievements of the LGBTQ+ community. The reason we celebrate Pride in June is because of the Stonewall Riots of 1969.

The riots began specifically as a retaliation against the on-going police brutality, violence and discrimination the queer community was facing in New York (and all over America) at that time – especially trans women, drag queens, and queer people of colour.

Because of the excessive whitewashing and prominent issues of racism within the LGBTQ+ movement and the queer community, we must remember the history of the Stonewall Riots and why they started.

The Stonewall Inn was one of the few places in Manhattan where LGBTQ+ people could unapologetically come together and dance. This was one of the few places where the fear of police harassment wasn’t as bad as other venues. There were still a fair number of raids at the Stonewall, and police brutality was still an extreme problem.

The Stonewall National Monument on 25 June 2016 by Rhododendrites

On the 28th June 1969, the most famous riot broke out between the police and the Stonewall patrons. A raid unlike no other had started and this time the people of Stonewall decided to fight back.

The Stonewall pioneers

Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were some of the first to throw bricks and bottles into the police raid, sparking off the riot. Marsha was at the head of the movement, and without figures like her we would not have the modern LGBTQ+ movement that we have today.

Sylvia Rivera by Kay Tobin/New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1970

Every June, we celebrate the legacy of Stonewall and the fearless queer pioneers who we are indebted too. Following the Stonewall Riots, the Gay Liberation Parade was organised as a way to commemorate the movement. The message was to show the world that we’re here, we’re queer and we’re ready to fight for our rights.

Queer women of colour, especially trans and non-binary folk of colour, have always been at the forefront of the fight for queer liberation and equality. Yet, they are always excluded from the narrative and people of colour are constantly erased and further marginalised due to whitewashing – this needs to stop and we need to do more.

Pride is a time for love, joy, celebration and most importantly giving a big F@*K YOU to homophobia, heterosexism, gender binaries, racism, ableism, sexism, appropriation, heteronormativity, homonormativity and all forms of oppression.

In the words of Munroe Bergdorf, let’s try to our best to “elevate and amplify the voices of the most marginalised members of the LGBTQ community; trans women of colour, especially black trans women of colour.”