Pride in Reading has become depoliticised while also becoming increasingly commercialised and corporatised. DIY Pride Reading wants to change that with a collaborative, collective, and queer community-oriented event that promotes LGBTQIA+ human rights and reclaims the radical and revolutionary potential of queer existence.
There can be no Pride in Profit. Corporations sponsor Pride to improve their public image by co-opting positive connotations of queerness (a tactic Sarah Schulman termed ‘pinkwashing’ in 2011) but will withdraw their support from the queer community whenever that support becomes inconvenient or unprofitable. Pride—like our queer existence—is inherently political and we take issue with claims of political neutrality when they are made under meaningless slogans like ‘Love Unites’.
There is no PRIDE in GENOCIDE. Pride in Reading might be free to attend, but it is not free from the demands and restrictions that come with corporate sponsorship, which often uses LGBTQIA+ human rights to legitmise human rights abuses, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinans. There is no Pride in Genocide and we stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.
We believe in queer solidarity – a solidarity that begins with compassion. For us, solidarity is a belief and practice that remains at the heart of what we are doing and why. Our solidarity is grounded in disability justice as well as in queer feminist solidarity with trans folks.
We believe that Pride cannot be neutral, is never apolitical, and should not be corporatised or commodified. In rejecting the appropriation and corporate pinkwashing of queer communities, identities, and histories, we believe in a Pride that returns to its activist and collectivist roots. We take no PRIDE in meaningless ‘neutral’ slogans like ‘Love Unites’.
We believe in centring the experiences of the global majority, a term Rosemary Campbell-Stephens has introduced to refer to ‘people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south and/or have been racialised as “ethnic minorities”’. We refuse to look the other way in the face of genocide, of Islamophobia, of racist violence. We do not condone calling for the safety and welling of ‘all communities’ when it results in violence against Muslim communities locally, nationally, and globally, especially in Palestine.
We believe that the principles and practices of keeping our community safe should be abolitionist-, queer-, & trauma-informed.
We believe in trans-inclusive solidarity. Trans-exclusionary rhetoric, behaviour, and policy are dangerously pervasive at present and trans-exclusionary practices have no place at our Pride. Gender critical discourse in 2024 turned what should not be an existential question into an existential threat, fuelling an insidious transphobia that seeks to erase trans existence, particularly targeting and impacting the lives and futures of trans youth. Now, the implications and consequences are wide-ranging for trans folks of all ages, in the UK and around the world.
We loudly affirm our belief in an support of the trans community: trans existence is not a threat, not in question, not up for debate.
We believe in ‘no cops at Pride’. We don’t need to perpetuate the systemic and racist violence inherent to police & policing. Police inclusion at Pride prevents the safe and welcoming community we seek to create while excluding those from our community who are systematically & traumatically impacted & oppressed by police & policing.
We believe the liberation of queer people is and must be intersectional: we cannot be free unless we are also working towards the liberation of women, disabled people, the global majority, sex workers, and working class people.
We believe in a Pride that creates queer alliances without putting profit before people. Allies that speak out against and stand up to hatred, even when these stances are deemed unprofitable or damaging to corporate brand images. We cannot address the widespread and systemic nature of racism and Islamophobia in the UK with the queer equivalent of ‘thoughts and prayers’. Calls to condemn or fight hate, claims of allyship with the global majority and fleeting support for black queer and trans lives that are well-meaning but performative.
We believe Pride should build up communities, not profit from or silence them.
We want to create connections, opportunities, and resources that allow our community to grow and improve together. We are manifesting and grounding our work in intersectional, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-cop practices.
We want to fundraise to support mutual aid. We are committed to compensating volunteers, workshop organisers, and performers from ticket sales and through donations. We want to build connections with local organisations and communities to support our work.
We want a world where trans people have access to free healthcare and where trans youth can live without constant threats to their futures; where prisons no longer exist and in their places are rehabilitation structures; and where heteronormative, patriarchal, colonial, racist, capitalist, and extractivist values no longer restrict who we are but threaten how we live and what we need to thrive.
We want a world where we are safe to be the fullest extent of ourselves without having to live in fear of violence.
Here are some of the things we read and built on in developing this manifesto. We hope you will take the time to make use of them.
We are always open to reading recommendations and would love for you to share resources you find helpful with us.