Belfast Pride chooses to platform the PSNI every year, and this year, they have gone a step further by carrying a PSNI recruitment advertisement in the official Pride programme.
For many people, this isn’t a neutral decision. It sends a message about whose experiences are valued and whose are not.
By choosing to partner with and promote the PSNI, Belfast Pride is choosing to overlook the concerns of many LGBTQ+ people from Republican communities who have experienced discrimination & sectarianism from the heavily armed force.
It also ignores the experiences of many queer people of colour who have spoken about discrimination & racism within the PSNI.
At the same time, LGBTQ+ PSNI personnel have also spoken publicly about experiencing harassment, bullying and homophobia within the force itself. If an organisation struggles to create a safe environment for its own queer employees, it’s understandable that many in the wider LGBTQ+ community question why Belfast Pride are welcoming in the PSNI with open arms.
By ignoring its own community’s requests to not platform and promote the PSNI, Belfast pride loses the trust of the very community it’s supposed to represent. It’s clear that Belfast pride exists to represent only one type of queer person.
Pride began as a protest against systems that marginalised our community. It should be a space where those most affected by discrimination feel seen, heard and safe, and not a platform for institutions that many members of our community continue to experience as homophobic, transphobic, racist & sectarian.
The Belfast Pride committee must listen to the voices of its own community instead of choosing to ignore them year after year, and continuing to lose our trust by repeatedly platforming & promoting a sectarian, bigoted force.
There is nothing normal about the PSNI.
