Protesting higher SF Pride security, 3 groups bow out of parade

Three organizations have pulled out of this weekend’s Pride Parade in San Francisco as grand marshals in protest of the heavy police presence planned during the annual celebration.

Black Lives Matter, the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project and St. James Infirmary are refusing to march in the parade in their honorary roles to make the point that they feel less safe, not more safe, with the added security, according to representatives of the organizations.

“For a parade whose theme is racial and economic justice, we just feel that increasing the police presence — with indiscriminate searches and pat downs, and undercover officers throughout the event — is really not the way to keep us all safe,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives spokesperson who identifies as queer and gender nonconforming and had been planning to march with the group.

“ In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting that took the lives of dozens of queer, trans and gender non-conforming people of color, many people in our community are afraid,” the project’s statement said.

For us, celebrating Pride this year meant choosing between the threat of homophobic vigilante violence and the threat of police violence.