As a reaction against Pride’s increasing inaccessibility, queer people of colour and faith are creating alternative events. The enormous media presence also makes it more difficult for queer minorities who don’t have the privilege of being safely out to their families. Despite organisers stipulating that marchers can’t be drunk, there is a lot of alcohol at the parade, and this can be difficult for many Muslims who don’t drink, or for those who are fasting during the month. With Pride’s corporate redesign comes some exclusionary pragmatics. Having a presence in the parade is expensive, and groups like ours were underfunded, and struggled to be present, let alone have a presence that was at the level of richer groups.” A former chair of Imaan, the UK’s leading LGBT Muslim charity, discussed with me the inaccessibility of Pride for queer Muslims: “It was difficult to organise around Pride.
Other queer Muslims share reservations around Pride. ‘Let’s focus away from the corporate intersections with LGBT citizens.’ Photograph: Niklas Halle'N/AFP/Getty Images And while the treatment of LGBT people remains dire in many Muslim countries, this militant secularism mutes the fact that many queer Muslims also hope to march at Pride, and that a majority of Muslims condemn homophobia (the East London mosque notably campaigned against homophobic hate stickers in the local borough, Tower Hamlets). This is particularly sensitive in a context where, for instance, a large number of gay men in Paris voted for Marine Le Pen in 2017, persuaded by her rhetoric that Islam was a threat to civic liberties.Īnd last year’s Pride saw its fair share of Islamophobia, with groups holding placards reading “Fuck Islam”, with some specifically damning the East London local mosque. When western capitalism is painted as a haven for gay rights, I experience a friction between the Muslim and queer parts of my identity. As a gay person of Muslim heritage, the inescapable secularism of Pride makes me anxious.
#NHL GAY PRIDE STICKERS GENERATOR#
Pride’s corporative makeover contributes to an image that I find politically troubling – that neoliberal ideology is the generator of LGBT rights.
Let’s pull our attention to how LGBT rights intersect with the struggles of other minoritiesĪs such, Pride feels much more like an ode to capitalism than a fight for actual civil rights.