Having uniformed police participate in Auckland's Pride Parade would be "deeply insulting to the history of gay liberation", one woman says.

The decision to ban the uniforms from the annual parade and ask police to march in T-shirts instead has divided the rainbow community, with the tension coming to a head at a heated public meeting on Sunday.

Police have said they would not participate at all if they could not march in uniform.

The Defence Force has pulled out of the parade as it did not feel comfortable "participating in an event that excludes other uniformed services", squadron leader Stu Pearce said.

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Auckland woman Emilie Rākete has been protesting against the inclusion of police and Corrections officers in the parade for the past five years.

Chris McKeen/Stuff Emilie Rākete believes police uniforms have no place at Pride parades.

Rākete, a spokeswoman for the prison abolitionist group People Against Prisons Aotearoa, said she believed the police desire to march in uniform was motivated by PR.

"They will only march on their terms. They were told they could still come along, just not in their uniforms, but they've refused," she said.

"All they want to do is rep the police. They won't even consider doing this one small symbolic acknowledgment.

JEFF TOLLAN/STUFF Police march in the 2018 Wellington International Pride Parade.

"It's all about wanting to put their branding on something."

Rākete said she had been beaten by police and groped by a male officer, and the way they treated transgender people was "disgusting".

She also pointed to police statistics that showed officers were more likely to use tasers or pepper spray on Māori people than on Pākehā.

"For many Māori people the police uniform is the last thing they see before waking up in a hospital bed."

Kyrus Watson, the national advocacy co-ordinator for People Against Prisons Aotearoa, said the history of police was one of "gay bashers and homophobes" – particularly before the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was passed in 1986.

"I don't remember this, but many people do, and that history still exists."

Chris McKeen/Stuff Rākete said the police desire to march in uniform was motivated by PR.

Watson pointed out the first Pride marches – held in 1970 in the United States – commemorated the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, where members of the LGBT community protested a police raid at a New York bar.

More recently, Watson said they and a friend had been arrested, threatened, and purposefully misgendered – referred to with a word that did not correctly reflect their gender – by police, and their friend was "laughed at when he started to cry".

"I have heard only the same from other people, both transgender and not, who have been arrested."

CAM MCLAREN/GETTY IMAGES Many transgender people and queer people of colour said police involvement in Pride made them feel unsafe.

In a press release last week, the Pride board said its decision to ban the police uniform came after a thorough consultation process.

"The personal experiences of police mistreatment shared by LGBTQIA+ people throughout this lengthy consultation process were deeply affecting," the statement said.

"The intention [of the uniform ban] was to encourage all people within our rainbow communities to feel safe and included within their own event."

In response, police Inspector Tracy Phillips said she was "really proud" of the work police had done, and "if we're not welcome, we're certainly not going to force our way in".

Earlier, Phillips told Stuff while there was still "truckloads" of work to be done, the relationship between police and the rainbow community had come "a long way" from the days where gay men could "genuinely fear" being arrested.

The Human Rights Commission has welcomed police moves to better understand and engage with the rainbow community and said the establishment of diversity liaison officers – of which there are about 80 around the country – was a "step forward".