Alison Mau: Pride after the fall - what next?

Saturday, 9 February 2019

The parade became mired in controversy when police were banned from marching in uniform. (Video first published in Jan 2019)

OPINION: The mood on Auckland's famed party-and-poseurs strip, Ponsonby Rd, is a bit subdued this weekend.

Those not familiar with the place probably wouldn't notice the difference – the bars and restaurants are still flush with millennials living their 'squad goals' – but a tinge of regret hangs in the air nevertheless.

Usually at this time of year the barricades are up, bodies are oiled, glitter is flung, cheeks are covered with dark lipstick kisses. In five short years, the Pride Parade had become a staple calendar date for the queer and straight communities alike.

But not this year. It was done in by a turbulent power-struggle between factions in the community and replaced by a march in a completely different part of the city.

* Auckland Pride board reincarnates parade as walk

* Pride Parade to continue despite reports of cancellation

The decision to ban police from marching in uniform in the parade led to corporate sponsors and participants pulling out and a vote held on whether to roll the Pride board.

* Defence Force won't take part in Pride after police uniform ban**

You could say the parade was a victim of its own success. The 2018 event was the biggest and most spectacular since its revival five years earlier.

Many transgender people and queer people of colour said police involvement in Pride made them feel unsafe.

It had become a must-do on the Auckland events calendar, and more controversially, a 'must-support' for corporates and organisations who either wanted to fly their queer-friendly credentials, or at least look like they truly had some.

Growing pains were inevitable, and there will have been a drive to keep that momentum going. But how do you do that without leaving others – trans people and queer people of colour, for a start – behind?

Auckland Pride board chairwoman Cissy Rock.

Combine that with something no one has mentioned: despite the years of support from flash corporates for the parade, this was not a corporate board. Its former treasurer, Matty Jackson, was the first to resign back in November, and agrees this was a bunch of good-hearted volunteers who were stretched and struggling to cope.

The board did some things absolutely right. Jackson says it scrapped fees and made membership free, to include people who might not traditionally been involved – that's something he's proud of. It called a series of hui. The word came back that some LGBTQI+ people don't feel safe around police, and they have their perfectly legitimate reasons for feeling that way.

Here's where things could have been different. A sensibly phrased question – along the lines of 'what are your suggestions for asking police and Corrections to work with us?' – and some reasonable time allowed to get answers from the community might have sidestepped some of the grief that followed.

But that's a pointless what-if now.

We don't have a parade. We do have a march that brings Auckland Pride some considerable way back to Pride's international roots, which are in protest. Pride has never been just a party – it's political.

And there are a tonne of other things to do. There are plays, comedy, a family picnic, writers' festival, free movie screenings, serious public lectures, yoga, sports, drag bingo, a garden tour, poetry readings, even a dog show.

Sunday is also the 20th Big Gay Out; a tradition that has survived even in the years when there there was no parade. There are a lot of ways to celebrate.

But what next? Cissy Rock, the woman who admits she'll be 'infamous' as the current chair of the Pride board, told me the plan for 2020 will see more groups who've missed out before – 'gender minorities, non-binary and trans people' – funded to stage their events at Pride, which until now have been aimed mostly at 'cis[gender], white men'.

'People are saying, 'I know where I fit in now',' Rock says.

That probably means a split down the middle; different parts of the community supporting their own gigs. Perhaps there'll be a parade and a march – or maybe it'll be more like Wellington Pride, where there is a morning hikoi, an evening parade and Out In The Park in Civic Square.

It will take more than one go-around to bring the fractured relationships in the LGBTQI community back together, but Rock says she'll try in the six months she has left in the job.

'Some people will see me as leading and including some of the most marginalised groups, and some will see me leading and destroying a perfectly fine parade,' she says.

'But you've got to be be bold. I'm up for that.'

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