Look beyond the glitter and Pride is far from the perfect party

When corporate pinkwashing becomes the norm, and the safety of the most marginalised members of our community is ignored, we know that pride has some soul searching to do. 

Pride season has arrived, a time for the LGBTIQA+ community to come together to celebrate our identities and dance in sweaty liberation to Kylie Minogue, while the word “fabulous” enters the vernacular of every female TV presenter.

With Melbourne’s premier pride festival Midsumma in the rear mirror, and Sydney’s World Pride wrapping up over the next week, much of the queer community will be recovering from an extended period of parties and performance. 

I for one, have had my fair share of gallivanting around pride celebrations in Melbourne dressed in appropriately promiscuous, but wildly impractical attire.  

These events mark our calendars each year, heralded by the media as moments of harmony that unite the LGBTIQA+ community while providing us with unprecedented visibility. And for many, this is an accurate representation. Pride can offer connection and joy for queer and trans young people still discovering themselves. I still remember the exhilarating sense of joy when I attended my first pride event at 18 years old. 

But beyond the inflatable rainbows and messages of love, we must remember that pride is no stranger to conflict. Indeed, Mardi Gras began in 1978 as a protest for the decriminalisation of homosexuality that escalated into a violent encounter with police. 

For those who know its origins, it should come as no surprise that the presence of police at pride is a major sticking point within the community. 

Repeated concerns around safety raised by various groups – including queer people of colour, ex-detainees, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander folks – have been largely not acted upon. The Australian Federal Police even has its own float in Mardi Gras, a somewhat cruel twist of history given the police’s fraught record of violence and neglect against the LGBTIQA+ community. 

Lidia Thorpe made headlines this week for her solidarity with the ‘no police at pride’ movement at Mardi Gras, but little airtime was offered to give mainstream audiences an insight into the complexities of this issue.

For a younger generation with a critical eye for inclusivity and disdain for traditional authority, this feels out of step with our values. An event that is built on the principle of equality but doesn’t provide a safe space for everyone, is somewhat of a contradiction. 

Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that pride season has increasingly become a pink dollar playground for companies looking for quick PR in an economy where inclusivity and diversity are lucrative mantras.  

This became abundantly clear to me at the Midsumma Pride March in St Kilda last month, as I observed the unusual participants with a seltzer in hand and scepticism in my eye. 

Amazon, a multinational company with a reputation for worker exploitation and anti-unionism, marched holding a banner emblazoned with “Glamazon”.

Jetstar, a budget airline with a penchant for misgendering me on every flight I’ve been on, proudly walked down Fitzroy Street.

Origin Energy, an electricity retailer that operates Australia’s largest coal fire powered station, also decided to join the party.

And the list goes on, with staff from the Ravenhall Correctional Centre prison, gambling app Sportsbet, and oil and gas company British Petroleum all waltzing proudly in the parade. 

I couldn’t help but ask myself why we were all cheering for organisations that have little to no involvement in the LGBTIQA+ community, many of which don’t align with my values. What did Midsumma expect me to do? Yell words of encouragement? “Slay climate destroyer! Kill the earth!”.

It truly gives new meaning to Britney Spears’ gay anthem Till The World Ends.  

Jokes aside, we can hope that ‘pride’ will still retain its true meaning as a rallying cry for equality, love and acceptance. Perhaps with an injection of funds from the Andrews state government, Midsumma will no longer need to accept pity money from morally questionable organisations. 

Like any event migrating into the mainstream, pride will forever be the hyper-commercialised beast that cannot appease everyone. 

But when corporate pinkwashing becomes the norm, and the safety of the most marginalised members of our community is ignored, we know that pride has some soul searching to do. 

This article is part of a monthly series, Youth Matters, a collaboration between Youth Affairs Council Victoria and Pro Bono Australia to inject the voices of young people into the social change sector.