A growing discontent with Pride Western Australia’s political direction has led to several organisations calling a Fremantle Pride Protest on November 20, a week before the Pride WA’s Parade on November 28.
The Fremantle Pride Protest aims support “the further advancement of queer rights and commemorate the history of the worldwide Pride movement”.
It is being organised by Queer Department, Curtin Student Guild and University of Western Australia (UWA) Student Guild Pride department.
Pride WA has become a corporatised parade, with little political meaning. Well-established queer community groups, including Curtin’s Queer department and UWA’s pride group, have dropped out of the parade because it no longer represents queer people.
First People Rainbow Mob (FPRM) has been unable to attend the pride march as a group, due to the high fee that comes from Pride WA’s classification as a “LGBT funded” corporation. FPRM is WA’s peak body represents LGBTIQ First Nations people.
Organisers of the Fremantle Pride Protest do not believe First Nations people should be charged to march on their own land.
They also point to Woodside Energy becoming a “principle sponsor” of Pride WA in 2019, saying how out of touch it is with majority opinion in the queer community.
Fremantle Pride Protest organisers are calling on the WA government to improve access to gender-affirming healthcare, commit to and implement the 2018 recommendations of the Darlington Statement on intersex rights, remove gender markers from government IDs, especially birth certificates, and abolish WA’s archaic Gender Reassignment Board.
[Come to the Fremantle Pride Protest.]