Contemporary debates about police participation at LGBTQ Pride events are rooted in a long history of conflict between LGBTQ communities and law enforcement. For much of U.S. history, LGBTQ identities and behaviors were criminalized through laws targeting same-sex intimacy, gender nonconformity, public gathering, and sodomy. Collective memory of police raids on LGBTQ spaces continues to shape tensions surrounding police engagement with LGBTQ communities. One of the first recorded acts of resistance to police harassment occurred at Cooper Do-Nuts in Los Angeles in 1959, when LGBTQ patrons reportedly resisted arrest by throwing a deluge of donuts, coffee, and garbage at raiding officers. A decade later, the 1969 Stonewall uprising marked a pivotal moment in LGBTQ resistance to policing, as patrons resisted a police raid over several days. The following year, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March commemorated the uprising and became the foundation for modern Pride parades.
Police participation in LGBTQ Pride parades and events remains a recurring and often contentious issue as Pride celebrations begin each year across the United States. These debates are closely tied to broader questions about the nature and purpose of Pride itself. Scholars and activists frequently describe a transformation of Pride from a site of protest and resistance to one centered more on celebration, institutional inclusion, and commercialization. Unlike the police raids that catalyzed early LGBTQ demonstrations, contemporary police presence at Pride events is often formalized through municipal permitting processes or invitations from organizers seeking to promote safety and inclusion. For some LGBTQ people, police participation in Pride represents progress in police-community relations and protects attendees from anti-LGBTQ protesters. Others view police participation as a form of “pinkwashing” that obscures ongoing historical and present-day patterns of police violence and discrimination against LGBTQ communities.
Research shows that LGBTQ people view police more negatively than non-LGBTQ people. Although law enforcement agencies have undertaken efforts to improve relationships with LGBTQ communities, the legacy of anti-LGBTQ policing, combined with contemporary perceptions and experiences of bias, continues to hinder these efforts. LGBTQ people report lower willingness to interact with the police. LGBTQ youth and adults are less likely to report experiences of victimization, often citing concerns about anti-LGBTQ bias in law enforcement. Research focusing on transgender experiences further documents police profiling, victim dismissal, assumed criminality, intentional misgendering, and other forms of gender-based violence and mistreatment.
Broader views of policing also shape attitudes toward police participation in Pride events. Although debates over police participation in Pride frequently appear in mainstream media and public commentary, limited research has explored these perceptions more systematically. Police participation in Pride events can take many forms, ranging from law enforcement and security functions to marching in Pride parades, either in uniform or in plainclothes. Because police involvement encompasses a variety of roles and levels of visibility, individuals may differ in what they consider “participation,” and these interpretations may shape their support for police involvement in Pride events. Supporters often emphasize narratives of progress and view problems with policing as less relevant to their local context. Opponents point to continued negative experiences with police, especially among LGBTQ people of color and lower-income LGBTQ individuals. Research also indicates that many LGBTQ people hold ambivalent views toward police presence at Pride, seeking protection from anti-LGBTQ violence while remaining skeptical of police willingness or ability to provide such protection. Some demographic factors have also been shown to shape these attitudes, with support for police participation generally increasing alongside income.
Although existing commentary and research suggest LGBTQ people hold mixed views about police participation in Pride events, most prior studies are limited to specific locales or rely on relatively small, non-representative samples. In this report, we contribute to the conversation by providing national estimates of LGBTQ people’s perceptions of police participation in Pride events.
Perspectives on Police Participation in Pride Events
We analyzed LGBTQ people’s perspectives on police participation in LGBTQ Pride events using data from the Policing the Rainbow study, the first nationally representative survey examining LGBTQ people’s experiences with and perceptions of the police. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “Police should participate in LGBTQ Pride events to show their support.”
Overall, we found that 48% of LGBTQ adults supported police participation in Pride events, while 19% opposed it and 33% expressed ambivalent views (“neither support nor oppose”).
