It’s Time to Get Back to the Radical Revolutionary Roots of Pride in 2022

I, like many others, am trying to figure out what Pride means in 2022. As a trans woman being released from prison on Monday, June 20, one may assume I am ready to celebrate. Think again.

What I am ready for is community and action. We all need community and action in 2022. Here is why.

Conservative and religious groups have been busy lobbying against LGBTQ people. The result: a record number of bills proposed by state lawmakers in 2022, around 240. About half of these bills target trans people. The issues range from limiting healthcare to participation in sports and bathroom use.

The truth is that most voters support LGBTQ rights. The conservative politicians, religious leaders, conservative scholars, and dedicated bigots are scared and desperate to find ways of limiting the rights of LGBTQ people. Knowing the public does not generally support such action, lobbying provides a potential pathway for anti-LGBTQ machinations.

These so-called conservatives tout themselves as champions of traditional values, families, and institutions. I know their traditions involve the systematic assault and erasure of LGBTQ people. Some conservative state lawmakers hope to celebrate with a traditional boot on the necks of trans kids as the symbol of victory.

I am deeply concerned about the psyches of trans kids in a world where powerful bigots want to erase them, complete with on onslaught of media coverage.

According to a recent survey from The Trevor Project, more than half of trans and nonbinary youth seriously considered suicide in the previous year. Another survey noted that two-thirds of LGBTQ kids said debates over anti-trans legislation impacted their mental health negatively.

I remember negative messages coming from family and society when I was a trans kid. That nonstop beat-down caused me to believe I shouldn’t even exist. The lack of love and support destroyed my self esteem, and I tried to erase myself to please others.

How we respond to anti-trans bills in this moment sends a message to kids and will impact their mental health.

The violence against trans folks doesn’t stop there. Forbes reports 2021 as “the deadliest year on record, with 375 trans people murdered.” That means 375 people who cannot celebrate Pride this year. All those people had friends and families who were also impacted.

I can’t shake the feeling of hate and violence harming my community. As one who deeply cares about her friends and community, I am angry. I am ready to fight like hell because I know just what is at stake.

Many agree that this is the time to get back to the roots of Pride. The first Pride was a protest inspired by a riot. That riot on June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn wasn’t the first of its kind, but it was the largest and most covered, which served as a turning point in contemporary American LGBTQ history.

“Every revolutionary is motivated by great feelings of love.” -Che Guevera

The queer and trans radicals of color and street kids who led the Stonewall riot were those most impacted by anti-LGBTQ violence and police harassment. The struggle for human dignity started a revolution. A love for friends and community motivated rioters to take risks and fight for each other, which generated the solidarity needed to turn the tables and get the police running scared for a change. Rioters sang and danced in the streets impudently.

The next year, a march was held to celebrate the Stonewall insurgency. The march became a protest, which is thought to be the first annual Pride event. But over the years, organizers around the country adopted an assimilationist agenda, which shaped Pride as a glittery, pro-police parade.

Pride celebrations around the country are getting back to radical revolutionary roots by making some fundamental changes.

Heritage of Pride banned cops in uniforms from events in NYC until 2025. Complaints of police violence and concerns for safety are among reasons for the ban.

Boston’s LGBTQ community is reimagining their event to include no corporations and no cops. Their commitment includes greater equity and inclusion efforts informed by critical human geography. Boston is heavily segregated, as many cities are, causing some to feel uncomfortable in certain areas as a function of racialized spaces

As an abolitionist, I see an opportunity to build solidarity as a community. Instead of being trained to rely on police for safety, we should develop collective-care strategies designed for our communities.

We can never eliminate harm entirely, but we can eliminate a dependence on institutions of surveillance, policing, and prisons that cause more harm to our communities than the harm they respond to. 

A Long Tradition of Violence: Someone’s Got Some Explaining to Do

We should remember the criminal legal system is anti-Black, patriarchal, cis-hetero, and classist at its foundation. Police originated as a response to Native resistance, the rebellions of enslaved people, and labor disputes. In some states, they acted as patrol for enslaved people. Today’s, police forces look more like a heavily militarized occupying army.

One could argue that slavery wasn’t even abolished, but reformed. The 13th amendment allowed slavery of those who committed crimes. This acted as a bridge for landless but free Black people to be funneled into prisons and exploited for labor. Prisons have since reformed into the mass incarceration model of today, which is more about incapacitation and the commodification of bodies than exploitation of labor.

When I hear someone defending “traditional institutions,” I can’t help but to remember what “traditional values” institutions like policing and prisons were built upon, the “traditional families” they represented and the “others” they harmed.

And today, despite so many reforms over the years, traditional institutions like policing and prisons impact QTBIPOC disproportionately. According to one 2012 survey, gays are incarcerated at rates three times higher. The 2015 Transgender Survey finds trans people in jail or prisons double the rate of cisgender people.

Once in the system, LGBTQ people are more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. Trans prisoners are 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted. They are also five times more likely to be assaulted by guards.

It Gets Personal

As a trans woman of color, who is currently at the end of a 242-month prison sentence, I have been traumatized by the criminal legal system. The prosecutor and courts delivered a harsh outcome for me as a criminalized survivor of domestic violence.

I have experienced things in the prison system that I don’t think I will ever have the language to express. I have written in detail about some of what I could share in publications like them, Truthout, or Dame. Even trying to access transition-related healthcare has been a continuous nightmare.

I believe historical icons like Sylvia Rivera or Marsha P. Johnson would be in prison in today’s hyper-punitive age of mass incarceration. If we fall into the trap of respectability politics, we could miss out on a whole generation of leadership. There are other leaders like myself who have been incapacitated and become abandoned or betrayed by those who legitimize a cruel and unjust criminal legal system

The police don’t make me feel safe—community does. I love my friends, and I would do anything for them. We find safety in prison not through reliance on guards but on each other. I try to build a culture of care with my community. That is what I hope to build in the community after my release from prison.

Community and Action: My Vision of Pride and Beyond 2022

I see Pride as a rallying point in 2022. We know what we are up against, and now it’s time to come together for planning and action. The future of our children and our survival is at stake. I learned how to fight like hell for my friends in prison. Now I am ready to scale up as a defender of queer and trans children and communities.

I hope to see Pride celebrations eliminate a dependence on the traditional institution of police violence. I see an opportunity to build a culture of care for one another’s safety needs. If we can do it in a prison, it can be done in the streets.

Communities should nurture queer and trans children to be courageous and resilient. How we respond to the onslaught of debates and media coverage impacts them. I hope we teach them to never let anyone define them. I hope we teach them to never change or shrink for anyone’s benefit. We can’t always find a safe space, but we can learn to be brave in every space.

We should prepare queer and trans youth for the battles to come and to help them understand how we win. We need queer and trans leaders, lawyers, teachers, and organizers. We already have a tradition in building with folks like Dean Spade and others leading the way.

Political education and mobilizing for action may be the most important way we can fight for our communities. State lawmakers can be replaced, and they need to know that. We can also continue to educate voters and use the power of the people to achieve our agendas.

Passing down generational queer and trans wisdom is an often forgotten part of building survival skills. With so many murdered trans people in 2021, I look to the brilliant survival strategies of those who have either survived living on the streets, or in a cage like myself. Sylvia Rivera once talked about how she had managed to keep from being murdered by listening to her instincts about a situation.

People often virtue signal at Marsha P. Johnson, but most don’t remember that she was found face down in the Hudson River at the end of Christopher Street. We may never know what happened or who killed her. How can we leave out that one of our icons was abandoned to such an end? We can honor our ancestors by being mindful to not lose one more in such a way.

I envision communities coming together in fierce celebration of each other as we confidently prepare to defeat those who wish to erase us through legislation, or even murder us. Frantz Fanon wrote that the essence of revolution is human dignity. Now is not the time to compromise but to come together to celebrate radical revolutionary roots of Pride. Now is the time to build our own traditions and to stop begging for acceptance into power structures that never intended for us to survive.

But we have not only survived, but thrived. And there is no stopping the queer and trans abolition movement that is coming. That is why our traditional enemies are frantically spewing fearful and desperate propaganda in 2022.

Jessica Phoenix Sylvia is an Empowerment Avenue justice writer. She is currently writing a book based on a set of shocking prison memoirs.

Photos courtesy of Jessica Phoenix Sylvia