The No Pride in Policing Coalition condemns the City of Toronto support for Pride Toronto by raising the Progress Pride Flag. It is a performance meant to convey the City’s goodwill toward the LGBTQ2S+ community, and assurances of safety during the month of Pride. However, we continue to experience criminalization and police violence, particularly against Black, Indigenous Two Spirit and Indigiqueer, racialized queers and trans people.
Olivia Chow and her administration have ignored calls for defunding, demilitarizing and abolishing the Toronto Police Services (TPS). Instead, under her leadership TPS has received yet another budget increase which is now being used to fund police violence against pro-Palestinian supporters while Israeli genocide continues unabated. The police have been brutally attacking peaceful protests, deploying tactics such as kettling, detentions and arrests. Under Olivia’s leadership, peaceful protesters calling for an end to genocide are under surveillance and being arrested for hate crimes.
The City of Toronto and Pride Toronto do not represent queer and trans grassroots constituents who are calling for an end to genocide and the abolition of policing and all policing institutions.
As a queer and trans, Black, racialized, Indigiqueer and two spirited coalition, we say NO to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, Sudan, the Congo and everywhere else in the world where lives, including those of queers and trans, are being annihilated.
We say NO to escalating fascist tactics suppressing our teaching, writing, social media and peaceful assembly. Condemning genocide is not a hate crime.
We say NO to the attacks on the U of T encampment and their supporters by the university administration and politicians for demanding they divest and cut ties with Israel.
We say NO to recent motions to City Council to limit our peaceful assemblies.
Israel and its Zionist regime continues to bomb Gaza, Rafah and other parts of Palestine with the help of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany and other Western Nations. At the same time, we who are queer and trans in Canada are facing ongoing attacks on our lives from queerphobia, transphobia and government officials determined to undermine our right to exist.
Pride Toronto, which represents the largest Pride parade in this country and Mayor Olivia Chow refuses to condemn the genocide in Palestine and the vicious police attacks, intimidation tactics and arrests, of so many pro-Palestinian protesters – many who are queer and trans. We cannot pretend to celebrate queer and trans lives this coming Pride without demanding a ceasefire and for a boycott of the Israeli apartheid state.
Pride is a time when we dance, sing, love and when we embrace being free. But how do we celebrate during so much human carnage and not seize this moment to demand the same for queers and trans experiencing genocide in Palestine and beyond.
This Abolition Pride 2024:
– We will celebrate the fierce resistance and labour of queers and trans, medical personnel, women, educators and others in Gaza, Rafah and elsewhere in Palestine who have been defending Palestinians against Israeli bombardments
– We will celebrate the determination and resilience of the many queers and trans Palestinians, Arabs, Jewish, Indigenous and two-spirit, Black and racialized people who have been on the front lines protesting the Israeli genocide of Palestinians
– We will name all the violators and genociders and demand they be held accountable for their crimes
– We will make clear the intensification of brutal policing attacks against protesters and demand the abolition of police, prisons and all forms of carcerality
– We will hold each other close as we march together, as we sing, as we dance, as we refuse and resist any attempts to stop us from marching for our lives
We will be doing all of this because we know that to be truly free, all Palestinians, Sudanese, Congolese, Haitians, those who are queers, trans and sexually diverse in these regions and beyond must be Free!
For information on our upcoming teach-ins and other events leading up to “From Tkaronto to Palestine and Beyond: Abolition Pride 2024”, please email us at: info@noprideinpolicing.ca or go to our website at https://www.noprideinpolicing.ca/
Media Contacts:
Beverly Bain
baincarol19@gmail.com
647-980-3242
Gary Kinsman
gkinsman@laurentian.ca
647 385 4221