Pride under militant scrutiny

*This article was written before the Trans March took place and may contain information that has passed its date.

Criticism has been pouring in from all sides in recent weeks against the Fierté Montréal festival Festival (which organizes the Pride Parade, among other events) and the organization of the annual Trans March. There seems to be a certain amount of surprise and confusion about all this. So let's try to clear it up in this first Front Rose article. Let's understand what these two entities are and what has led several groups to denounce them.

Let's start with the giant that is Fierté. Its website states its “mission”.

Fierté Montréal amplifies the voices of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities to ensure their representation, inclusion and recognition of their rights in society.

Behind this vague organizational language, let's look at the facts: since 2007, Fierté has been the heir to Divers/cité, which in 2006 decided to redefine itself as an arts and culture festival. The Divers/cité festival itself had emerged in the wake of the mobilizations that followed the violent police raid on the Sex Garage in 1990. Fierté follows in this line of reclaiming the community's political mobilizations as a cultural celebration. And now, the depoliticization of LGBTQ+ struggles has gone much further. Fierté is essentially an “LGBT” culture festival.

Fierté Montréal has never been a political project, and neither the annual Pride marches to celebrate the community's gains nor the disembodied demands listed on its website change that. The festival functions like all Montreal capitalist festivals, seeking above all to maximize attendance and the size of its annual budget. This is the central paradigm of its business: performance and visibility. A logic that doesn't prevent it from lending its visibility and legitimacy as a “voice of the community” to capitalist and oppressive institutions, notably those involved in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. This is what we call PINKWASHING. The TD Bank, the gay Zionist group Ga'ava, Tel Aviv Tourism, and others will be at this year's parade.

The police, the political class and various daily oppressors of our communities will also be in the parade. Fierté hasn't changed a thing this year compared to previous years, it's people's consciousness that's changing. Fierté has always been an accomplice to horror and associated with institutions whose hands are stained with blood. So why are the denunciations coming this year? The horror of the genocide in Palestine, the bombardment of atrocious images on the networks, the size that the mobilizations have taken on and the involvement of many LGBT community groups/individuals in them make it impossible to ignore Pride's material complicity with the Zionist project, or its place in the Israeli propaganda machine. Community organizations, activist groups, political organizations, collectives, artists, unions and others called for a boycott of the parade or withdrew from it.

Others called for critical and vocal participation in the parade to force the subject of Palestine into the march. Elsewhere, parades were blocked or disrupted, as in Victoria where activists blocked the TD float (often specifically targeted given the millions invested in the arms industry) and, in so doing, interrupted the parade. This apparently led to TD's withdrawal from the Halifax parade, for fear that the action would be repeated. The case for Pride is clear, and has been for a long time. This institution only serves the artists big enough to perform there, the corporations who find it a veneer of gay-friendliness, village businesses and the city's image, but it has never won anything for our communities. Let's hope the criticism continues in the years to come! It's past time to revolt against this farce of representation.

The case of the Trans March is very different. The trans march was created as an activist initiative. This annual march was launched in 2014 and carried, for most of its history, by the euphorie dans le genre collective (a collective with the aim of promoting the rights and well-being of trans and gender-diverse people). In 2014, the simple act of bringing the trans community together and demanding a public voice symbolized a combative initiative in the face of the tactics employed by trans circles at the time. Since then, and despite some serious work on the part of activists, the trans march seems more and more to resemble a simple parade of the trans community. This tradition seems to have crystallized and is having difficulty adapting to the changes of the moment. But that's not what caused the criticism, not directly.

Information on the situation within the organization of the 2024 march is coming out in dribs and drabs. What is known at the moment is that some of the organizers have blocked efforts to put forward the Palestinian question within the march. One was reported to have made overtly racist remarks about the Palestinian community. In the end, this situation prompted some of the organizers to leave the march. So what are we to make of this situation? The question of racism on the part of some of the organizers is clearly central to this, but it's not enough to explain why this logic was able to prevail within the organization. Would the apoliticization of the trans march explain more broadly how this came about?

We shouldn't be too surprised that a demonstration linked to many trans organizations, generally very wary of engaging in political efforts beyond their immediate mission, didn't quickly and clearly support the Palestinian cause. The trans march has failed to adapt to the politicization and radicalization of a large section of the community, which is rapidly acquiring a political consciousness through recent struggles. It remains to be seen whether this historically important march will be updated and repoliticized. That said, there is much to celebrate in the many groups who have spoken out in the face of the situation, and in the mobilization of an anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist contingent that promises to be large this year. Let's hope we are witnessing the beginning of something, and of course, long live free Palestine!