Pride means different things to different people. For some, Pride is a party, a celebration, a chance for LGBTQIA+ people to be our true authentic selves. For others, Pride has always been a protest and always will be.
The Organising Team and Trustees of Norwich Pride feel strongly that the need for protest is greater than ever. If we didn’t have a Norwich Pride, we would need to create one right now. The attack on our trans and non-binary siblings and the attack on the very right to protest gives us no choice.
In summary, pride is whatever you make it but we have a march rather than a parade and we feel it our duty to educate all pride-goers as to why the event is more important than ever.
Will political parties be at Norwich Pride?
Bristol Pride recently posted about the involvement of political parties at their event. They decided not to allow any political parties to have stall or march as an organisation until more is done to stand up for the entire LGBTQIA+ community.
We agree that not enough leadership is being shown from the top to support our community and lead by example. In particular, not enough politicians are using their platform to stand up for trans rights.
At the time of posting no political party has a stall. We have turned down requests from some political parties to have a speaker at our talks and discussions preferring to platform activists. The Labour Party is marching as a group. As it stands we will not be banning them from doing so. We note the fact that the overwhelming majority of local members of the Labour Party (and Green Party) are both a) supportive of trans rights and b) have put pressure on party leadership to do more. We note in particular the motion in support of trans rights presented by Green councillor Alex Catt last year which was passed and the recent response by Labour Leader of the City Council Mike Stonard to a public question by our trustee Nick O’Brien on the matter.
We will continue to review this and hope we feel able to involve political parties more ahead of Pride 24.
What relationship does Pride have with the police?
Over the past year some Norwich Pride supporters have contacted us with concerns about the Norfolk Police Force being part of our allies programme and their role more broadly as part of the pride movement in Norwich. Whilst this has come from a relatively small part of all those that march with us every July, we hear their strong feelings.
This issue has been discussed previously within the Pride Committee in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, then following the decision of London Pride to ban the Metropolitan police last July and finally after the policing of the Drag Story Time counter protest in Norwich last August.
Norwich Pride stands in total solidarity with trans/ non-binary and people of colour. Our approach to campaigning is always intersectional. The theme of Norwich Pride this year will be protest and our ongoing and deep solidarity with our trans/ non-binary siblings.
Norwich Pride condemns in the strongest possible terms the actions of the London Metropolitan police. We believe that the situation with Norfolk Police is more nuanced. It is not the Metropolitan police but there are concerns about the use of stop and search and the “both sides” policing of events like the Drag Story Time where our members of our community were not seen as allies. This was not good enough.
At the same time, we recognise the work of honest, out LGBT+ officers. We note that around the first year of Norwich Pride in 2009 it was a battle internally for officers to wear the uniform on the march and commend those that were courageous in fighting for that. We work professionally and consistently with both local officers and the city council to make Pride safe every year.
We have listened to LGBT+ officers talk about how important participation in Norwich Pride is to them but also note that they understand the tone of the participation depends on the context of the day and agreement with Norwich Pride via ongoing dialogue.
What does this mean?
1. The police will no longer be part of Norwich Pride Allies programme.
2. The police hear and recognise the tensions some members of our community have around marching in uniform at pride. If the police march at future pride events, they will always wear Rainbow epaulets and face paint, no body armour. There will be ongoing dialogue with organisers around this.
3. Policing at Pride will generally be low key. We will always “manage” the event within the community as far as possible. We expect the police to react quickly to any counter protestors.
The police and Norwich Pride will develop a more formal way of working together over the next few months and will continue to report on this to the community via our website. This relationship will be largely based around:
i) Ongoing dialogue with the LGBT+ network, mainly focused on reflecting community concerns and training for officers via forums and information sharing.
ii) Planning for possible flashpoints (e.g., avoiding upset around events such as the Drag Story Time policing) and response to counter protestors at pride.
Has Norwich Pride signed the Fossil-Free Pride Pledge?
The Fossil-Free Pride Pledge requires a Pride event to do the following:
1. Adopt a publicly available ethical sponsorship policy.
2. Not to accept sponsorship from or partnership with fossil fuel companies.
3. Not to accept sponsorship from or partnerships with financial institutions funding fossil fuel companies.
In brief, Norwich Pride is working towards signing the Fossil-Free Pledge and anticipates being able to do this before Pride 24.
We agree that climate change affects LGBTQIA+ communities around the world. We are committed to being an ethical and sustainable Pride whilst being aware that we are a small team of around ten volunteers that organises a huge event and is active over the year. We are happy to work towards the pledge but don’t feel we are there yet. It would be dishonest and unserious to say so.
Taking the three issues: We will over the next year work on an ethical sponsorship policy. We do not and will not accept sponsorship or partnership from fossil fuel companies Our main concern is with the third and final point around companies who could be linked with FF companies. Sometimes this may not be immediately obvious and we wouldn’t want to mislead people until we are sure.
We welcome any constructive support in helping us achieve these aims. There will no LGBTQIA+ rights on a dead planet.
Norwich Pride 