Embedded Files
Taking Back Pride formed in 2016 as a response to Twin Cities Pride’s staunch refusal to disallow cops at Minnesota’s largest free pride event. An event that should be for all LGBTQIA+ community members continues year after year to ignore calls to prioritize the safety of the most marginalized of our community in favor of corporate greed and including cops in outright opposition to the origins of Pride itself.
In 2018, Taking Back Pride continued after MPD shot Thurman Blevins in the back, and was met with racist taunts from Pride attendees.
Because of COVID, there was no Twin Cities Pride in 2020 and 2021, but Taking Back Pride continued Pride as a protest. With the execution of George Floyd, Twin Cities Pride publicly admitted we were correct about cops, but when they returned in 2022, they brought the police back with them.
An event that should be for all LGBTQIA+ community members continues year after year to ignore calls to prioritize the safety of the most marginalized of our community in favor of corporate greed and including cops in outright opposition to the origins of Pride itself.
TBP also stands in opposition to the presence of big corporations at Pride, who rebrand themselves in June for queer dollars while sending money to our oppressors and funding genocide. Many of these corporations have even flipped the script and pivoted away from even this fake support following Trump’s inauguration.
We don’t need big corporations pretending to care about us only when conditions are favorable and abandoning us at the drop of a dime and we never have.
We deserve better than a corporate parade funded by the same companies that harm our planet, profit from war and fight to take away the few rights queer revolutionaries have fought for and won for the LGBTQ community. We deserve a Pride rooted in community, a safe place for queer and trans community members of color to exist away from police, and that publicly stands for and with us during June and every other month against attacks on our community.
As attacks on the most targeted members of our community ramp up rhetorically, legally, and physically, the time for aggressive LGBTQ activism is now.
Join us in the streets this year to Take Back Pride!
