My Experience with Fierté and Violence
by Abe
When I woke up to see Fierté Montreal's statement I was happy. If nothing else, it's a symptom of wider support for Palestine. But I was angry, too. Fierté cannot pretend to have always been on this side. They have not "always been clear" or "amplif[ied] the voices of queer communities who [...] express support for oppressed peoples". For a statement about genocide, it's remarkably self-centered: we learn that Fierté is "rooted in a long-standing movement to fight oppression", "a safe and celebratory space for everyone", and "[preserves] the emotional and physical safety of our communities". Especially in light of Wild Pride, it reads more like a defense that even those woke Gen-Zs shouldn't abandon ship.
Last year I went to one of the Community Days as a token white person to defend Helem MTL from the anti-arab racist harassment they typically get in these sorts of places. Later, my friend and I did a round of all the tables. We passed the army, whose employees were engaged in enthusiastic recruiting talk. Then there was the SPVM, uniformed cops milling with their hands stuck into their collars and elbows puffing out.
We stopped by the Radio Canada table, which had released 'Trans Express' earlier that year, a fear-mongering documentary that poses trans-masculine people as vulnerable, mentally ill girls, and exploited their sources. But this documentary hadn't cost Radio Canada their place in Community Days. I wonder at how much transphobic reporting Fierté would draw the line. Then again, the SPVM regularly heckles us with transphobic slurs during protests - but they're welcomed with open arms to be boisterously present at Community Day. So maybe there is no line at all.
Later that month I held a banner in the parade disruption. Without provocation that I can remember, the SPVM tore the banner from our hands. Instinctively, I held on - it was ours - and I was punished for it by a baton hit to the stomach. The baton hit me hard enough to shatter my phone screen, which was slipped into the front pocket of a hoodie. A cop hit my wrist. I fell into the crowd, who surged forward to prevent me from falling. The video of the incident circulated widely. I look smaller in the video than I remember being. I'm defenseless, I pose no threat to the line of riot police. I fall, and they seize the banner. My wrist is sprained.
This whole time, a Fierté staff member is talking with one of our liaisons. They both look unhappy. We're heckled by a disappointingly large crowd, the most dedicated of which go so far as to leave their original perch and pursue us. They are almost uniquely white, older, gay men. It seems like Fierté attracts this crowd in droves.
At best, Fierté was not cheering the cops on, like our entourage of gay men. Instead, they rerouted the parade around us, so that no one would witness our brutalization. The SPVM reported to the news that there were no injuries. I guess Fierté didn't want to correct that record, even though the videos of me being hit hard, and others being hit harder, were everywhere.
Reading their statement, I think it's a possibility that Fierté wants to be different. Last year they set a stage for oppression and brutalization by inviting police to their Community days, by being most accommodating to the cis men demographic, by inaction that empowered bad actors. I'm not looking to assuage the gay SPVM or Radio Canada employees, either. Their sexuality isn't a choice. It doesn't make them part of a community.
Maybe queerness will soon be vilified enough again that the sponsors will drop Fierté before Fierté drops them. Either way, I won't be sad to see that house of cards collapse. And we rebuild.
Fierté employees, why not drop this brand entirely, built from metaphorical and literal blood, and be part of an alternative pride?