Returning Pride to Its Stonewall Roots: 'Our Battle With the Police Is Not Over'
LatestTo close out Pride Month, Jezebel presents On Pride: A series of conversations with LGBTQ artists and activists about our communities’ relationship with police, building queer spaces outside of the parade, and other pressing issues affecting queer and trans people nationwide.
Queer Americans’ history with the police is one of violent oppression. The Stonewall riots of 1969, the “birthplace” of LGBTQ civil rights in the United States which all modern Pride celebrations trace their roots to, began with a police raid of a New York City gay bar, after all. While some LGBTQ people are no longer at such risk for police harassment, the more vulnerable members of these communities—people who are black and other people of color, trans, low-income, homeless, undocumented, disabled, and/or sex workers—are still at risk for experiencing violence at the hands of law enforcement.
Because of this ongoing tension, the presence of uniformed police officers at Pride celebrations has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, particularly when those officers proceed to arrest the very same queer and trans people they claim to be keeping safe from harm.
One such incident occurred in Philadelphia in early June. ReeAnna Segin, a 20-year-old community organizer and educator from New Jersey, was arrested at the city’s annual Pride Day Parade on Sunday, June 10th after allegedly attempting to burn a Blue Lives Matter flag. (Blue Lives Matter is the pro-cop countermovement established in response to Black Lives Matter’s organizing around police brutality in black communities.) Police officers also say that they found road flares, paint thinner, and a lighter stick in Segin’s backpack, per The Philadelphia Inquirer. Segin was held overnight in jail before being transferred to a men’s prison, Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, despite the fact that she is a trans woman. (Trans women are frequently housed in men’s prison facilities, where they face disproportionately high rates of violence. About one-third of trans people who were incarcerated were physically and/or sexually assaulted by staff and other inmates, per the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 survey on trans Americans.)
On the question of police, she was unwavering that it was “disrespectful to the founding moments of Pride itself.”
Segin, who was repeatedly deadnamed in early reports of her arrest, was released on bail the following day. She was charged with two first-degree felonies, attempted arson and causing/risking a catastrophe, along with the misdemeanor offenses of possessing an instrument of crime and recklessly endangering another person. The Philadelphia district attorney’s office withdrew the felony charges, reports 6ABC Action News, but the misdemeanor offenses remain.
Soon after her release, I had the chance to speak with Segin about her experience. She was measured and self-assured, choosing her words carefully and taking ample pauses as needed in order to make sure that she said what she wanted to say and nothing more. Mostly, we talked about police presence at Pride, and the event’s past, present, and future. On the question of police, she was unwavering that it was “disrespectful to the founding moments of Pride itself.”
“Going back to Stonewall, Pride is about rebelling against the government and against the police for oppressing you because of your queerness,” she said. “Our battle with the police is not over. They are still putting trans women in men’s prisons. They are still targeting oppressed communities.”
Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
JEZEBEL: For those of us who don’t live in Philadelphia, what’s Philly Pride like?