The 2024 SF Pride Parade will be led by a contingent honoring Pride’s legacy as a movement grounded in resistance — back when bricks crashed through windows at Stonewall and cop cars burned outside of the Elephant Walk bar. But some local organizers believe resistance this year goes beyond queer issues.
In response to SF Pride’s growing corporatization, association with police, and response to the rising civilian death toll and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, some have decided to opt out of the event. How many boycotted Pride altogether or attended alternative events is unclear.
But one counter event, a “No Pride in Genocide” march, attracted more than 500 marchers on Sunday and created a two-block-long parade. Meanwhile, thousands watched the main event, which went on for blocks.
“This is not a celebration — what we want is liberation!” chanted the marchers attending the alternative parade as they went down 14th Street from Church to Market, and then turned up Valencia Street.
“We will not be quiet! Stonewall was a riot!”
Mama Ganuush, a local Palestinian drag artist and activist, set the ball rolling. On May 23, Ganuush posted a statement on their Instagram account calling for a boycott of all San Francisco Pride events, citing a number of reasons, including the participation of floats from two major pro-Israel groups; the selection of Billy Porter, one of 700 celebrities to sign a statement declaring support for Israel, as the event’s headliner; and the police presence.
The day after Ganuush publicized the boycott to their 61,000 followers, SF Pride released a statement saying there would not be an increased police presence at the event, and inviting pro-Palestine activists to march in their Resistance Contingent.
But that was not enough.
“I don’t feel safe participating in any form of floats in Pride,” Ganuush said. “They are asking us to walk in a group that’s being sponsored by the people we are resisting. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
While the police numbers may not grow from previous years, their presence will be hard to miss.
Overlooking Harvey Milk Plaza, at an SFPD press conference on Thursday afternoon, Police Chief Bill Scott said that police would be “fully deployed” across the city on Sunday, with officers both in uniform and plain clothes. Sergeant Michael Petuya said police are prepared to “be vigilant” in the event of a bad actor.
“We are well equipped to deal with any protests that may occur and to take action to ensure the parade continues,” he said, Pride flags fluttering overhead.
The Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, the two pro-Israel groups leading a contingent in the march, said this year they will be adding a celebratory float, live performers, and music. The community center said the groups “will remain in close touch with law enforcement” throughout the march.
In 2019, two queer anti-police demonstrators were arrested at SF Pride, one dragged through the street and forcefully pinned down by five officers. Ganuush remembers clearly the first time they saw the footage of this arrest.
“More police never means more safety to the community,” said Ganuush.
Sai Singh, wearing a keffiyeh and yellow vest, worked as security at the Trans March on Friday. She explained why by referencing a chant that had broken out minutes before. “We’re trans, we’re queer, we don’t want cops here.”
After seeing the Apple float at last year’s parade, Singh said they realized they did not feel a sense of community in that space and are planning to boycott the parade this year.
For Ganuush, SF Pride’s appointment of Porter as this year’s celebrity grand marshal was indicative of the event’s divergence from its radical history. Since signing a letter voicing “unequivocally voicing support for Israel,” Porter has walked back his pro-Israel stance saying, “This is not my hill, and I am not going to die on it.”
“For me, SF Pride is the gay version of Super Bowl parades,” Ganuush said, commenting on the event’s spotlight on corporate entities that they said do not align with queer values.
Toward the back of Sunday’s march, the Brass Liberation Orchestra played, and a group of protestors draped in keffiyehs danced arm-in-arm in a dabke line.
As Palestinian and Pride flags billowed over the crowd in the Castro, Michael Rouppet looked on from the sidewalk. He had been sending photos and videos of the march to a queer friend in Gaza. Rouppet said he wishes people knew queer people were still living, and dying, in Palestine.
A few signs, held by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, or Q.U.I.T, members, read “You can’t pinkwash this” in bold text under images of leveled cities and bodies caught under rubble.
A few chants and banners also made references to pinkwashing, a term frequently used to describe the manipulation of LGBTQ+ issues as a strategy of concealing human-rights violations by painting Israel as a safe, modern, and ethical country.
Though Ganuush has been the face of this year’s boycott, a number of groups have been skipping or boycotting the parade for years. One of those groups, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, or Q.U.I.T, was founded in 2000 and has been organizing alternative Pride events this year. One event, which takes place the same time as the Pride parade, is a “No Pride in Genocide” march co-organized by Jewish Voice for Peace.
Indigenous activists are also skipping the parade. Historically, the group Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits Drum kicked off the Civic Center celebration each June with a sacred prayer, but this year the group pulled out.
“It’s a demonstration that we are in support of the fight for the liberation of indigenous communities across all occupied lands, and especially right now in occupied Palestine,” said Carmen Jovel, a drummer in the group. “These are very same systems that have dispossessed and displaced and genocided indigenous peoples here in Turtle Island,” they said, using the Indigenous name for North America.
Instead of the official SF Pride celebration, Jovel said the drummers will attend the alternative march on Sunday to share space with all Indigenous communities and connect back to their “heartbeat for liberation and resistance.”
If we are talking about safe and unsafe, well, I, for one, feel much more safe when there are not protesters trying to block the Pride parade and shut down the celebration of my very existence. And I feel much less safe when I see that the very real threats faced by LGBTQ+ people (and democracy itself) right here in the U.S. seem to be downplayed by activists in our City. Instead, we have multiple marches that rally around the flag of Palestine, one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ places on Earth, and that feature genocidal “river to the sea” chanting. So, I thank these groups for boycotting and making Pride safer for me.
If they care so much about another country, why don’t they go to that other country?
Here in San Francisco, let’s focus — for once — on things that affect San Francisco.
War or no, Palestine isn’t exactly a beacon of freedom for LGBTQ+ folks. You have to wonder what message is truly sent by wearing a patriarchal symbol like a keffiyeh.
The LGBT coalition is not an island off of which people who disagree with progressives can be voted.
Pride is supposed to be a protest for LGBT rights, not a receptacle for whatever grievance lefties have used to police other members of the coalition.
The trans borg is not satisfied with the Trans March on Friday, they’ve divisively insinuated their penised and testosteroned selves into the Dyke March on Saturday, and finally protest Pride on Sunday.
Thank you for the thorough reporting and credible representation of our voices.
One of the key things we are also protesting this year is The Civic Joy Fund.
The Civic Joy Fund, backed by prominent tech figures and conservative donors, seeks to reshape San Francisco, often to the detriment of marginalized communities. These events increase living costs and promote a higher police presence, all while presenting a facade of community betterment.