Do you have a Pride Parade in your city? You probably do. Has that Pride Parade had controversy around your city police department marching? I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘almost certainly’.

From Minneapolis, to New York, to Toronto, to Glasgow, to Edmonton, to Phoenix, to Auckland, to Vancouver, and San Francisco, there has been controversy over the police marching in Pride Parades. You’ll notice I included some international cities there — that’s right, this is international controversy. Turns out the police marching in Pride Parades is an issue of international scope and controversy. Or at least, international, Western, English-speaking, Five Eyes countries scope.

What’s the problem with the police, you ask? Supposedly, the story goes, the police are oppressors, that having them present is triggering, and supposedly means that people of color cannot attend the parade. This is the same story used throughout all those cities, all those countries, and despite cultural differences, the reasoning behind opposing the police marching in the Pride Parade remains identical. The Parade supposedly started as a protest against police brutality and should return to being ‘grassroots’ i.e as a protest against police brutality. It dishonors the brave ‘trans women of color’ who threw the first brick at Stonewall. You will find that repeated in all of those cities, and all those countries. Why?

To me, something smelled off. After years of hard work to let LGBT officers march in Pride Parades, suddenly the most progressive thing to do was to turn our backs on those officers? And why was the narrative, the reasoning, and the people behind each protest movement in each country, let alone city so similar?

And when we smell a rat,we go and investigate. We turned up some interesting stuff. To give you a taste: we found protesters speaking with Russian propaganda outlets a week after protesting, a lot of Russian trolls trying their best to amplify this narratives, and, as a bonus, more bad stats and bad history to add to all of that.

While the protest movement against police at Pride Parades may have started off as grassroots, it certainly isn’t any more. Let us show you how.

Attack Of The Clones

One thing I quickly noticed when I investigated is how similar many of these groups are. One of the fishy things about this whole situation is the sheer number of seemingly-identical groups, with seemingly-identical rhetoric and seemingly-identical goals.

Let’s take a look at the nation’s capital, where a group calling itself ‘No Justice No Pride (NJNP), protested police at the parade:

Last year the Pride parade was stopped a number of times by a group calling itself No Justice No Pride. They claim to be “a collective of organizers and activists from across the District of Columbia who exist to end the LGBT movement’s complicity with systems of oppression that further marginalize queer and trans individuals. Our members are black, brown, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, bisexual, indigenous, two-spirit, formerly incarcerated, disabled, white allies and together we recognize that there can be no Pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” So their method of protesting and calling attention to their issues was to try to ruin the day for everyone else. I question whether it worked for them. They threaten to do the same thing this year. But this year they can no longer make the claim they did last year when they said “For years, Capital Pride has ignored the concerns of queer, trans, Black, Latinx, and Two-Spirit communities in D.C. regarding its complicity with entities that harm LGBTQ2S people. Since March 2017, No Justice No Pride has been working to ensure that Capital Pride addresses our concerns, but time and time again we have been dismissed.” This year they have not been dismissed. They were invited to every meeting of Capital Pride. The president of Capital Pride is African American; trans and other members of the group were offered seats on the board. The chief of police in D.C. offered to meet with them and they turned down a meeting. So this year we must question what their real motive is and whether it is simply more publicity for the few leaders of the group. No Justice No Pride has yet to show it represents anyone other than themselves. D.C. has for years had an award-winning MPD Liaison Unit to the community. They are widely respected and their sergeant is a transgender woman. Demanding they be excluded from the parade or telling them they can’t wear the uniform is nonsense. It accomplishes nothing.

No Justice No Pride have been quite busy. Not only were they protesting Capital Pride, they also protested in Boston:

“BOSTON — Queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) disrupted the Boston Pride parade today under the name No Justice No Pride Boston to elevate concerns of systemic racism within Boston Pride, including guidelines for corporate sponsorship and police presence. No Justice No Pride Boston — a group of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous LGBTQ+ activists alongside white allies — disrupted the parade in front of the Santander contingent to protest a financial institution that has profited significantly from the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. Santander’s economic exploitation has stripped the island of its capacity to invest in relief efforts, including rebuilding infrastructure. A recent study found that the death toll following Hurricane Maria is close to 5,000 people: a direct result of Santander’s business practices and an economic system rooted in a history of colonization and white supremacy. “We remind Boston Pride that Stonewall — led by trans women of color — was a protest against racist, anti-trans police brutality and the systemic oppression of queer and trans people further marginalized by race, class, ability, gender, religion, and immigration status. As these injustices continue today, Boston Pride cannot ally itself with the institutions that inflict harm on our community. Pride should be an opportunity to uplift marginalized voices within the LGBTQ+ community and to work together towards intersectional justice and freedom.” We highlight the many corporations that have made contributions to the Republican Party and Republican candidates actively supporting anti-LGBTQ+ agendas. These same corporations also profit from systems of oppression: private prisons and mass incarceration, war, surveillance, and pipelines — including the Dakota Access Pipeline — that destroy the earth and crush Indigenous sovereignty. By allowing corporations like TD Bank, Citizens Bank, Bank of America, and Capital One to march in the parade, Boston Pride celebrates those who profit most from systemic racism and white supremacy. In order to achieve the liberation of all LGBTQ+ people, Boston Pride must understand how its behavior is complicit in this violence and move towards centering those most marginalized within our community. Boston Pride has done little to address the police presence at Pride events, and the culture of Boston Pride continues to be one that centers the comfort of LGBTQ law enforcement while ignoring the QTPOC victims of police brutality and ongoing ICE violence. Most recently, a transgender woman, seeking asylum from her home country of Honduras passed away under ICE custody. Further, a significant number of transgender people experience harassment or violence from police, more so if they are people of color. Police brutality is a queer and transgender issue, and given our long painful history, police should never be celebrated at Pride.

In fact, No Justice No Pride have been very busy on opposite ends of the country. A group with that name also protested in Seattle:

“Protesters have shut down the 2017 Seattle Pride Parade at approximately 11:50 am PDT this Sunday, June 25, 2017. The following statement was sent to Seattle Gay Scene this morning from organizers behind the No Justice No Pride Seattle protest group.The group plans to stage a protest at today’s Seattle Pride Parade in downtown Seattle, Washington at some point during the event which begins at 11 am PDT. No Justice, No Pride Seattle is an offshoot of the group that successfully staged a protest at the Washington D.C. “Capital Pride” parade on Sunday, June 11th which resulted in the blocking of the parade and its subsequent re-routing. No Justice, No Pride is a queer protest group opposed to corporate sponsorship of LGBTQ pride events from corporations they feel are harmful to global communities in general, but also specifically damaging to Queer people, Queer Youth and Queer People of Color. The group is also critical of government agencies and law enforcement they feel are acting detrimentally against oppressed groups.

Unsurprisingly, NJNP also protested in New York specifically against the GOAL:

“Just before members of the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) marched past the Stonewall Inn, the finish line of last year’s New York City Pride March, a small group of activists slipped past the barriers and chained their hands together to prevent the officers from passing, a protest technique called a “lockdown.” Dozens of cops working security at the march surrounded the protesters, and, over shouts of “f — k the police” and “racist, sexist, anti-gay, NYPD, KKK,” began to break through what appeared to be chains and rubber tubes the protesters had used to lock themselves together. Twelve protesters affiliated with the group No Justice No Pride were arrested, and after a brief delay, the march continued.”

GOAL, or the Gay Officers Action League, that Reclaim Pride in NYC wishes to ban from the NYC parade were world leaders in working towards ending police discrimination against the LGBT community, both internally and externally. They started in 1982, after the emergence of the first openly gay NYPD officer at a town hall meeting in 1981:

“At a packed 1981 City Hall committee meeting over a decade-old gay- rights bill, a top officer with the NYPD’s largest union told the crowd he was not aware of any “homosexual police officers” in the department. A sergeant from the Manhattan South Task Force suddenly rose to the podium behind him and uttered words that silenced the massive Council Chambers. “I am very proud of being a New York City policeman,” Sgt. Charles Cochrane Jr., then 38, said into the microphone. “And I am equally proud of being gay.” Cochrane’s rebuke of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association First Vice President J. Pat Burns was a landmark moment in NYPD history. There had never been an openly gay cop on the force since it was founded in 1845. It earned him a standing ovation. The bill would languish in committee for another ⁴¹/₂ years before it passed in 1986. Cochrane would go on to create the Gay Officers Action League to support LGBTQ members of law enforcement. What began as a secret 11-person meeting in the basement of St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village in 1982 is now a 2,000-member organization, celebrating its 36th year with chapters across the country

GOAL later went on to sue the NYPD for not permitting them use of the same facilities other fraternal organizations within the police were allowed to use, and did not get the right to march in full dress uniform until after that lawsuit, in 1997.

No Justice No Pride (NJNP) have been rather busy, really, haven’t they? Who is this group? I had to find out. So, of course, I went straight to their website, which is here. It’s pretty slick, having been built in campaign website software Nation Builder. Here’s how they describe themselves:

“ No Justice No Pride (NJNP), a collective of organizers and activists from across the District of Columbia; We exist to fight for trans justice and to end the LGBT “equality” movement’s complicity with systems of oppression that further marginalize Trans and Queer individuals. Our members are black, brown, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, bisexual, indigenous, two-spirit, formerly incarcerated, sex workers, disabled, and white allies. Together we recognize that there can be no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.””

They’re not just in DC though — these guys have chapters across the country. That slick website also begs for donations. A bit of digging reveals they do have a financial sponsor however — Trans United Fund. This is revealed in a Facebook post dated the 18th December 2018, which I have reproduced below:

If ‘Trans United Fund’ sounds familiar, that’s because they launched a glossy ad campaign during the election called ‘Meet My Child’. Their founding was covered in a glossy article in TIME Magazine, and the ad received nearly 1.5 million views on Facebook. Yet despite the calls for donations on its website, and a board that includes noted professional nonsense artists Brynn Tannehill and Jacob Tobia, it filed a return after the election saying it spent no money during the year ending 2016, after being founded in October 2016.

In fact, for the year ending 2017, Trans United Fund must have been blinded by all that coverage by TIME Magazine, because they failed to file a return with the FEC. Indeed, they said they didn’t file because the organization had no financial activity. The finally said that the PAC had no financial activity, therefore didn’t need to file, again in 2018, after receiving another letter from the FEC. So how does an organization that never spent any money have a glossy ad campaign?

Despite telling the FEC that no money was used, it still told TIME it was spending money to support trans candidates:

“Groups like Trans United, founded just a year ago, and the Victory Fund are providing campaign donations, candidate trainings and small armies of volunteers to help trans candidates challenge conservative incumbents. Roem cites a Victory Fund “candidate boot camp,” which offered campaign strategies for LGBT political hopefuls, as a major boost to her campaign. It’s not clear yet how many trans candidates, who are all running as Democrats, according to the Victory Fund, are favored to win. Most are running in down-ballot contests with little early polling. But Daye Pope, organizing director of the Trans United Fund, says many are on track. With infusions of support from groups like Trans United, Daye says, some transgender candidates have had early success outraising their opponents. So far, Roem is out-raising Marshall, $65,851 to $57,247, banking donations from what Roem likes to call her “small-dollar army” of loyal grassroots supporters”

Now, Trans United also functions as 501(3)(c) charity. Perhaps that is where the money for NJNP comes from. But I can’t find any IRS forms on their website, nor on charity listing websites. The ones I can find date back to 2009 — long before that glossy TIME Magazine coverage. Which is against IRS regulations, which requires them to be available for public inspection. So I’m somewhat suspicious of the whole thing, to be quite honest with you. While it says it’s a 501(3)(c) on its website, if, god forbid you decide to donate, it’s suddenly a 501(4)(c):

“Paid for by the Trans United Fund: a political voice for trans communities. Trans United Fund is a 501c4. Contributions to Trans United Fund are not deductible for federal income tax purposes as charitable contributions.”

So which is it? Why did they spend $0, yet register a PAC? I’m confused. Oh, and that PAC? This doesn’t look like ‘no financial activity’:

And what kind of money is going to NJNP? The whole thing just seems really, really weird.

I smell a rat. A rat that I can’t prove, which irritates me to no end. But it looks like ‘Trans United Fund’ is either acting as a money funnel or lying to the FEC. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a perfectly innocuous explanation for the slick website and the ad campaign, but FEC returns saying no money was spent, and the complete lack of 990 forms. I await that innocuous reason eagerly.

Of course, there are more groups that NJNP protesting the Pride Parade.

Here’ they are in Minneapolis, where police were banned from wearing uniform, based on the following:

“Representatives have conveyed to me that there is still a great deal of pain and harm that has occurred in their community, specifically our LGBTIQ communities of color, which has not been completely heard and addressed,” Arradondo wrote. “As Chief, I am committed to ensuring that the MPD increases our capacity to build allyship with our city’s LGBTIQ communities.”

And in Phoenix, Arizona:

“An LGBTQ protest against police involvement in the Phoenix Pride Parade was short-lived on Sunday as a phalanx of police officers used bikes to force the crowd from the streets onto the sidewalk. Parade organizers had given permission for Trans Queer Pueblo, a community organization advocating for undocumented LGBTQ people of color, to voice concerns at the parade, according to Jeremy Helfgot, a spokesman for Phoenix Pride. He said they hadn’t expected the group to disrupt the Pride parade, as they did last year but, just in case, Pride board members said Monday they had asked police to intervene if necessary. About 30 people linked arms and lined the streets, chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, racist cops have got to go,” in opposition to Phoenix police being allowed to be part of the parade. Then, as police participating in the parade emerged in their cars along the route, the protesters started moving into the streets to block them. Four trans women stood atop chairs in the middle of Third Street, near Clarendon Avenue, to stop police from continuing in the parade. That’s when police officers, behind a row of bicycles, surrounded the protesters and used the bikes to push them back onto the sidewalk. As they continued to chant, Phoenix police threatened to arrest any protester that stepped back into the street. Deeana Rivera, a 44-year-old trans women who was standing atop a chair on Third Street, chanting in Spanish and in English: “Sin Justicia, No Hay Orgullo, No justice, no pride,” said she fell off her chair when Phoenix police pushed through protesters.”

No justice, no pride, eh?

The rhetoric in Phoenix is identical to that in other cities, too:

“After last year’s protest, which angered spectators, Pride organizers and Trans Queer Pueblo met and tried to reach a compromise. Trans Queer Pueblo opposes any police presence at the parade, as security or as participants. “We don’t feel included or safe at Pride,” volunteer Deybeth Ruiz said in Spanish. “The Pride board will not listen to our demand that we do not want the police at Pride so we have decided that instead of changing their minds, next year we will celebrate our own Pride that focuses on inclusion of people of color.”

Leaders of Trans Queer Pueblo said their 2019 pride celebration will be politically driven, focus on the intersectionality of gender, sexuality and race, and will be a safe space for LGBTQ people of color and undocumented immigrants to celebrate.”

The protesters later talked to corporate outlet Them.Us, owned by Conde Nast, to talk about bringing back Pride to the roots:

“ Bailon said they want to return the Pride celebration to its roots as an anti-police violence protest.”

There have been other protests — this article says there were anti-police protests in other major cities across the US. This is not isolated to progressive cities in the US.

It’s international.

Like, for example, this protest of police at Glasgow Pride:

“Activists have long been condemning authorities leading Pride parades, due to the history of police violence against the LGBT community, particularly trans people. The deaths of trans people of colour in police custody and in prison are absolutely disproportionate. Jess Bradley, the NUS Trans Officer who was arrested following her participation in the protest, outlined to Dazed that it felt “especially distasteful given the first Pride was a commemoration of an anti-police riot: the Stonewall riots.” “Bradley detailed the incident: “We went to the front of the march in an attempt to lead it ourselves. We were quickly jumped on by uniformed officers. I was wrestled to the ground, cuffed in a very painful way, and taken to the side, my friend was held in a chokehold and another was arrested too. We were charged with breach of the peace, and let out after seven hours in custody.” Bradley added: “We will be continuing our fight to reclaim pride and bring it back to the grassroots.”

(Jess Bradley was later suspended from the National Union of Students for um, exhibitionism and exposing themselves on public transport and at their work desk in a blog titled ‘Exhibitioninizm’. Yes. really.)

Why did I bold that quote? Well, thousands of miles away, in a country that creatively named its main islands ‘North Island’ and ‘South Island’, we have identical rhetoric:

“”The Auckland Pride Board will put all of its efforts in ensuring that there is a space for our community to march and be visible during the Pride season — a community led vision for a re-launched Parade.” A new role of Festival Coordinator has been created to replace the existing role of Festival Director. That role will be filled by Joel Walsham, a local artist who voted against a motion of no confidence in the Board at a meeting earlier in December. “We are excited for Joel to work alongside our community to put together a vibrant festival and work towards a grassroots-led Parade,” says the Board. The new role will be re-evaluated in March 2019. The Board thanked the LGBT community for their “revitalised engagement” in the debate that has seen unprecedented uproar from those on both sides of the argument.”

Auckland, a city of nearly two million, and the largest in New Zealand, had the activists actually take over their board. As we can see, even they’re using the same rhetoric about ‘grassroots’. The board faced a vote of no confidence in December 2018, and activists used the same rhetoric in defending the board’s choice to not include uniformed police:

““The visibility of the police uniform, in particular, had made them (some members of the LGBTQI community) feel less safe about participating in the Auckland Pride Parade. “Complaints about police consistently outnumbered feedback about any other institution or organisation,” it said. The board acknowledged it was a difficult and complex decision, but said it was one made based on extensive community consultation.

Following this debacle, the Auckland parade lost almost all corporate and government sponsorship, which was also a desire of the activists. The activists, who seem to alternate between the names ‘No Pride in Prisons’ (NPIP) and ‘People Against Prisons Aotearoa’ (PAPA), also protested the parade in prior years, over corporations, police, and corrections officers marching in the parade.

This is almost identical to Glasgow, which well, also opposed corporate floats in the parade:

““Those who have more in common with police than with LGBTQAI+ demonstrators fighting for their rights and against the fascist menace have no place running anything in the name of queer liberation, much less a pride march.” Free Pride, who call for anti-commercialization of Pride events, inclusivity and encouraging Pride as a protest, joined those condemning the arrests made. A spokesperson for Free Pride told Dazed: “Despite it being clear that the protest was peaceful and posed no threat to the wellbeing of any attendees, protesters were arrested and detained for up to two days. It is shameful that a minor was arrested simply for reclaiming a slur attributed to themselves. We stand in solidarity with the ones arrested and call for the charges to be dropped.” They added: “Pride’s roots lie in protesting against police brutality, and to this day the police are an institutionally oppressive force, specifically against the trans community which was once again shown on Saturday as two trans women were thrown to the ground without being told their rights or reason for arrest. This is what we were protesting and the Police showed us just how necessary it still is even today.“Those who have more in common with police than with LGBTQAI+ demonstrators fighting for their rights and against the fascist menace have no place running anything in the name of queer liberation, much less a pride march.”

But let’s not stop at Scotland and New Zealand. Let’s look at the vast metropolis of Edmonton, Canada! Because their parade was protested too! Not only that, but they weren’t permitted to wear uniform:

“The decision to allow police officers to march, but not in uniform, followed meetings between the society, city police and RCMP that were initiated after police vehicles were restricted from participating in the 2017 parade. The society explained at the time that in many communities, police enforcement agencies were seen to make marginalized people feel unsafe. A news release on behalf of the protesters said that people of colour were invited to be parade marshals, but that when those marshals raised concerns about police participation in the parade, their concerns were repeatedly ignored. “The Edmonton Pride Festival Society views people of colour as decorations, to be seen and not heard,” the release stated. The demonstrators included in their demands that “mainstream Pride spaces clearly acknowledge and honour Pride’s history as a demonstration against police oppression,” and that “more well-funded spaces specifically designed for people of colour and trans folks be included in the festival.” The news release says all of the demands were met.”

Huh. Weird. That’s three cities in three different countries with… identical rhetoric.

Oh well. I doubt it’s happening anywhere else in those countries, like, um, Vancouver:

“The Vancouver Pride Society (VPS) has made a decision about police participation in the 2018 Vancouver Pride parade. Xtra reported today that VPS executive director Andrea Arnot announced at its annual general meeting on November 25 that police are still welcome to participate in the parade but only as individuals marching in the City of Vancouver’s parade entry, and police uniforms, weapons, or vehicles will not be permitted. Black Lives Matter Vancouver (BLMV) has been requesting the removal of armed, uniformed police from participating in the Pride parade since July 2016.”

[…]

“However, Xtra is reporting that BLMV is pleased with the VPS decision for the 2018 parade, which they regard as helping to make Pride more accessible, inclusive, and safe for community members.”

Anyone else seeing double? Triple? Quadruple?

Turns out Australia has this problem too, with the extremely popular Sydney Mardi Gras also suffering an ‘attack of the clones’:

“A group hoping to return Mardi Gras to its protest roots–while removing police, the Liberal Party, and corporations from the parade–have announced their intention to run for Mardi Gras’ board later this year. The collective known as Pride in Protest will put their hands up at Mardi Gras’ annual general meeting next month, where Mardi Gras members will be able to elect the board. In a position statement on Facebook, Pride in Protest have said that if elected they will remove the “violent” NSW and Federal Police and the “homophobic” Liberal Party from the annual parade, and take it back from for-profit organisations “that are taking over”.” “Speaking to the Star Observer, spokespeople for Pride in Protest said the group had already liaised with several ’78ers who endorsed their campaign and what they stood for. “Institutions that cause harm should, as organisations, be removed,” they said. “LGBTI people who are members of those organisations can march as individuals, with their families, as community members, or in other floats, rather than as active representatives of institutions that perpetuate violence. “When the presence of harmful, violent institutions makes some members of our community unsafe in community spaces, a political choice has to be made as to whose side we’re on… to stay silent is to side with the powerful. “We want to see a Mardi Gras that represents every day people, not the interests of the elite, and that is open and and inclusive to the most marginalised in our community.””

That sounds divisive! And identical to other groups of protesters in Five Eyes countries!

Is it a coincident that all these groups emerge, and then proceed to talk and behave in exactly the same ways? They blockade protests, often marching in front of police. They claim to be restoring the Parade to it’s radical, anti-police Stonewall roots. They oppose corporate marchers, and they have identical facts and figures to back them up. In dozens of cities and in five different countries.

Does that sound like a coincidence to you?

Firstly though — are the protesters justified? Are their statistics correct? Let’s take a look:

Bad History: Stonewall Edition

Multiple left-leaning outlets have published lengthy pieces that basically repeat the rhetoric of the various groups of international protester clones, like this piece that insists that ‘If you want cops in Pride, you’re missing the next queer revolution’. (I think it might be a queer revolution I’ll pass on.)

Often one of the key justifications for excluding police from the Pride parades is that the original Stonewall riot was against police brutality. Here’s a typical example of that genre, from that article telling me I’m missing the next queer revolution:

“The Stonewall rebellion, a protest that took place inside (and outside and all around) the Stonewall Inn in 1969 in New York City, was essential to the inception of queer and trans Pride as we know it. It was also an anti-police protest. Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Storme DeLarverie and many other queer and trans women of colour were the heroines of LGBT liberation that rippled outward from the American east coast

I’m going to term this the ‘Stonewall Narrative’.

Despite happening in New York, The Stonewall riots are used as the justification to bar police internationally, even in places like New Zealand. The issue of course, is that there are, to use a word repeatedly, multiple issues with this narrative. Firstly, the police weren’t targeting ‘queer and trans’ individuals, nor was Stonewall the ‘inception’ of ‘queer and trans pride’. The NYPD were targeting people, who, at the time were breaking the law by engaging in same-sex relations. To put it crudely, dick on dick and vulva on vulva action. It wasn’t about some nebulous ‘gender’, it was about sex. No one was getting arrested for being ‘grey-a asexual hetero-romantics’ or whatever the heterosexual kids are calling themselves when they dye their hair and call themselves ‘queer’, thinking it a neat fashion accessory. In 1969, homosexual sex was what was illegal. Not anyone’s ‘identity’ or ‘same-gender sex’. Cross-dressing was also illegal, and was used to target homosexuals, specifically drag and lifestyle queens.

Calling it ‘queer and trans’ pride is erasure of what the original Stonewall protest was about — that fact that said same-sex relations were illegal.

But the Stonewall Narrative is extremely ahistorical. Marsha P. Johnson (the P, according to her, standing for ‘Pay It No Mind’), in an interview filmed shortly before her death and featured in the documentary Pay It No Mind, quite literally, from her own mouth, calls herself a ‘boy’ and a ‘homosexual’. Nowhere does Johnson call herself a ‘trans woman’. Instead, Johnson says she was fighting for gay liberation and transvestites, and even discusses not taking hormones like other drag queens at the time. The interview was filmed shortly before her death in a New York river. The documentary also covers her funeral, where the NYPD shut down 7th Street ad hoc so that the funeral procession could walk down it unhindered. Calling Marsha P. Johnson transgender is literally misgendering her, and transitioning the dead isn’t classy. It’s like the Mormons baptizing Holocaust victims.

Sylvia Riveria, another popular figure, and also dead, writes in an article published six months before her death, ‘Queens In Exile, The Forgotten Ones’ that she had a discomfort with the word ‘transgender’, refers to her lover as ‘another man’, and refused the label ‘lesbian’, and the fact she was glad she did not have sexual reassignment surgery. This is seemingly completely missed in the new Stonewall Narrative, which serves to completely erase the fact that the majority of those at Stonewall weren’t ‘queer and trans’ — they were white gay men and a few lesbians and lifestyle queens who had simply had enough. Riveria even says in ‘Queens In Exile, The Forgotten Ones’, that Stonewall was a white man’s bar, and that very few drag queens were allowed in there. Miss Major, another Stonewall participant even says that Riveria and Johnson weren’t even at Stonewall.

It’s a bad narrative. It’s fake history that strips both Riveria and Johnson of their complexity and nuance as historical figures, and imposes modern-day queer and trans ideology on the spirit of 1969 gay liberation movement. If the rhetoric of the 1969 gay liberation movement was repeated today, we’d probably be told about how it’s ‘TERF rhetoric’.

Time for some statistics.

Bad Stats Go To Prison

The assertions of many of these groups and media outlets — that trans women are stopped more frequently by police, for example, are just simply not true or lacking in evidence. For example, in this Vox article, we are told, for example, that according to a report by Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American Progress, that ‘Police often target LGBTQ people, particularly transgender women’, and told that ‘Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are twice as likely to be incarcerated. Rates are even worse for transgender people.’:

“According to the National Inmate Survey, in 2011- 2012, 7.9% of individuals in state and federal prisons identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, as did 7.1% of individuals in city and county jails. This is approximately double the percentage of all American adults who identify as LGBT, according to Gallup (3.8%). Sixteen percent of transgender and gender non-conforming respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey indicated they had spent time in jail or prison, with higher rates for transgender women (21%) and lower rates for transgender men (10%). Comparatively, about 5% of all American adults will spend time in jail or prison during their lifetimes.”

The problem is, is that’s just not true. I took at look at the report they’re citing in the article. Trans people aren’t over represented in prison: but the LGB are.

The report states roughly 7.9% of inmates in state and federal prisons were lesbian, gay or bisexual. Trans isn’t included in that statistic. That’s disproportionate compared to Gallup’s count of LGB people, which is around 3.8% of Americans.

Those statistics are from the same 2011–2012 National Inmate Survey that Vox is citing in that article. According to the same survey, 5,000 inmates identified as transgender. (this is all in state and federal prisons). The Williams Institute estimates the transgender demographic to be 0.6%-1% of the population.

The current US prison population is 2,220,300 (according to a 2013 report), which means that 0.2% of the US prisoner population consists of transgender prisoners , which is actually under-representation for their demographic. Trans people are less likely to be imprisoned. It certainly illustrates very neatly the problem with talking about ‘LGBTQI statistics’ and treating a set of very diverse groups as a monolith and erasing the LGB in the process. It is clear from the statistics provided that discrimination exists. That discrimination is towards same-sex attracted individuals — the LGB.

Including their statistics with groups that are not same-sex attracted is simply a recipe for erasing discrimination against same-sex attracted individuals. This is not just the case with prison statistics, but others too, such as homelessness statistics. The popular figure is that 40% of homeless youth are LGBT. I have seen this re-purposed into 40% of homeless youth are trans, or are queer, etcetera. The reality is very different — the 2012 Williams Institute survey that is the source of that information says, well, I’ll quote for you:

“The findings from this survey demonstrate that many LGBT youth are at high risk of homelessness, often as a result of family rejection and abuse. The analyses offer critical insights into the challenges that these young people face when they seek help during a very difficult time in their lives,” said Laura E. Durso, Williams Institute Public Policy Fellow and study co-author.

[…]

Among the key findings: * 94% of respondents from agencies work with LGBT youth * 30% of agency clients identified as gay or lesbian * 9% identified as bisexual * 1% identified as transgender”

Yet you will see this figure repeated as ‘LGBT homelessness’. Yet of that 40%, 39% were same sex attracted. 30% of homeless youth are gay or lesbian. Those are the figures you never hear.

Of course, there’s always more bad stats to debunk. Many of the groups said that ‘trans women are six times more likely to be assaulted by police’. But that’s not a great statistic either. It appears to come from this report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs(NCAVP). Of course, Arcus Foundation, notorious for funding transgender astroturf, provided ‘generous support’ and funded the survey.

I’m overwhelmed. Even in that report, we get this statistic:

“Of the total number of survivors, 47% identified as gay, 17% identified as lesbian, and 14% identified as heterosexual”

The vast majority of those surveyed as victims of violence were homosexuals. That heterosexual figure is people mistaken for homosexual and then attacked on that basis. This agrees with FBI statistics, which recorded 1,303 hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and 131 as a result of gender identity bias. That means that, according to FBI figures, 16% of single-bias hate crime incidents were from bias against sexual orientation, and 1.7% were a result of gender identity bias. (For reference, 59.5% of single-bias hate crime instances were racial in nature, and the vast majority of hate crimes are single-bias incidents). Those FBI figures come from 16,149 law enforcement agencies — which is almost certainly a very good sample. The NCAVP survey, by contrast, surveyed thirteen local member organizations for their report. It isn’t a survey of the general population, nor representative of the general population. It’s a survey of people who engaged with the NCAVP.

That means, we can say that trans women who engage with the NCAVP are six times more likely to be assaulted by police. But we cannot apply that to the general population, which is what many of these groups are doing. That’s dangerous. It serves to fuel the wedge that is being driven between the LGBT community and police, and to what end?

Because there are two groups amplifying these protest groups and their narratives about Pride: Corporate media outlets, and… Russian troll farms linked to Russian intelligence, and Russian propaganda websites.

Sound far-fetched? Let’s take a look, shall we?

Russian Trolls

I took a look through Twitter’s latest release of Internet Research Agency tweets, which number around ten million, in a variety of languages, to figure out if that was the case. The Internet Research Agency is a Russian ‘troll farm’ linked to the Kremlin.

What did these Russian trolls do? Sometimes it’s best to explain these things visually, which I will do with this helpful diagram I obtained from the internet:

Accurate.

Essentially, the intent is to amplify voices on the extremes of political movements, polarize the discourse around politics in a country, create a whole lot of outrage and carnage, and then take advantage. They were rather effective at it, with many Russian troll tweets being featured in media outlets. Even Donald Trump retweeted a Russian troll.

There are some caveats with Twitter’s data. The names of accounts with under 5,000 followers were redacted. It’s possible to reconstruct names by searching the descriptions, which aren’t redacted. However, it’s still very useful to see the content of Russian influence operations.

Of course, you probably think I’m crazy. How did the Russians infiltrate and amplify anti-Police in the Pride parade sentiment? Oh, that’s easy. Take a look at some of these tweets posted and retweeted by IRA trolls :

“ @alecmooooody · 11 Feb 2016 RT @ArielTroster: Prison abolition is trans liberation. Decriminalizing sex work is trans liberation. Supporting #BlackLivesMatter is trans…

In fact, this was retweeted by multiple Russian accounts. The original account appears to be genuine. I suspect that if it is in fact genuine, it would be disturbed by the number of Russian troll accounts that retweeted their tweet. Prison abolition was a popular topic, with one account even tweeting about it’s relation to Michel Foucault:

“RT @_CharlesPreston: Michel Foucault was lowkey talking prison abolition…in 1975. https://t.co/yeOXOrJm7V”

There are more tweets on prison abolition:

“@baobaeham · 8 Sep 2016 [Retweet]: Black Liberation and the Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) https://t.co/KYMcCXRHkJ @MoorBey https://t.co/8iRxsDNiOo”

‘Queer youth’ were often linked to Black Lives Matter, as we can see here:

“RT @telesurenglish: ‘In NYC Afro-Latinos and queer youth protest Minneapolis terror.’ #BlackLivesMatter https://t.co/W8gg9OJqrJ #racism httâ€¦”

(FYI: The text artifacts are Twitter’s fault, not mine.)

Redacted profile descriptions are often interesting. One redacted account posted this (as did numerous others):

“ “RT @BroderickGreer: No, 3 queer black women started #BlackLivesMatter in 2013, @tysonmanker. See the lengths folk will go to erase us?”

The ‘3 black queer women started BLM’ theme was popular, here’s another example:

“Three black queer women started #BlackLivesMatter.To be a woman, black, queer is an intersection of what I’m fighting for.#VisionToReality”

BlackMattersUS, which was also a Russian propaganda website and a Facebook page, tweeted out their propaganda about BLM and Pride Parades, too:

“ Why Would BLM Back Out Of Pride Parade? https://t.co/bEv2ygpXOw”

That t.co link leads to a Russian propaganda website, so I don’t suggest going there unless you want computer chlamydia. BlackmattersUS had 20,000 followers. I’ve reproduced the article below:

““Black Lives Matter and community groups say more police at San Francisco’s Sunday Pride Parade will cause panic. Black Lives Matter and other activist groups decided Friday, June 24, not to participate in San Francisco’s LGBT Pride Parade scheduled for Sunday after the organizers increased the number of police that will be present. San Francisco Police Department and parade organizers announced that there will be tight security measures during parade due to recent Orlando mass shootings that left 49 people dead. BLM officials, as parade grand marshal, disapproved of the city’s decision and decided not to join the event, stating that, “increasing the police presence at Pride does not increase safety for all people.” Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter official, explained that “as queer people of color, we are disproportionately targeted by both vigilante and police violence. We know firsthand that increasing the police presence at Pride does not increase safety for all people.” Cyril continued, stating that, “militarizing these events increases the potential for harm to our communities and we hope in the future SF Pride will consider community-centered approaches to security at pride events.” One thing that comes in mind is how BLM activists are targeted to be jailed. These police officers are sent not just to try and arrest innocent Black people, but mostly activists, who stand their way. The more officers are present at the event, the more possible arrests can be made and such a big event can give lots of causes. 20-year-old Ferguson protester, Josh Williams, who confronted violent cops to say no to police brutality, can serve as an example of such practice applied. He was sent to jail for eight years. Besides, Police didn’t protect Orlando club, they didn’t arrest Dylann Roof before he killed a lot of people. Whom at all can they protect?”

This was also tweeted by BlackMattersUs’ Twitter account:

“ RT @OccupyWallStNYC: Last night #PeoplesMonday shut down NYC for #JanishaFonville, a black queer woman killed by police (pics @KeeganNYC)”

This wasn’t the only attempt at propaganda news articles. Another propaganda website, BlackToLive, also posted this on Twitter:

“ “Choosing Between Homophobes And Police Brutality #Pride2016 https://t.co/lizLN708JE https://t.co/IHhzZKMQfM””

Unfortunately, the article is lost to time, and BlackToLive is now an Apache test page. The article was retweeted by other Russian bots. BlackToLive also invited readers to write their own articles for them, requesting contributors on their website.

Much of the Bad Narrative from Pride protesters revolves around the violence trans women face, which apparently justifies removing police from parades. Russian trolls tweeted about that frequently too:

“RT @TrayneshaCole: Cleveland trans woman Skye Mockabee was found dead in a parking lot. #SayHerName #Blacktranslivesmatter

This was a retweet by a troll with its username redacted of another troll ‘TrayneshaCole’ which had enough followers to not have its user name redacted. TrayneshaCole also tweeted about the controversial Pride flag that added black and brown stripes:

“A NEW FLAG FOR THE BLACK LGBTQ COMMUNITY AND THIS IS GREAT BOOST!!! https://t.co/zyuv1vW32a”

#BlackTransLivesMatter was a hashtag used by other Russian trolls, like in this example:

“ RT @472e7bbdf45c0888fd7e8aae3d6a8471da35511d18fe72f6b5e86a9f5471dc0e: Did you know this? #BlackTransLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatter #Blackpeople #blacktw #PoliceBrutality #racism”

(The long number is a Twitter userID of a redacted account.)

They used the deaths of black transgender women as a tool to further the polarization of political discourse in this country:

““Deeniquia Dodds, transgender woman, shot dead in D.C. Rest In Power! #DeeniquiaDodds #BlackTransLivesMatter https://t.co/B35XIXFRJv””

This was tweeted by ‘@gloed_up’, which had a display name of ‘1–800-WOKE-AF’. ‘Gloed_up’ was also the name of an account banned on Tumblr. It was retweeted by other Russian bots like ‘TrayneshaCole’. This is another tweet by ‘@gloed_up’. The link is to a tweet by ‘4mysquad’, another Russian troll:

“ “#VIDEO SHOWS PITTSBURGH #COP PUNCHING TEEN AT GAY PRIDE IN AN APPARENT USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE | THE GRIND. #staywoke http://t.co/pldWfVNBol””

They also tweeted about the BLM protest at Toronto Pride:

“BLACK, QUEER AND TRANS LIVES MATTER Pride Toronto, 2017 https://t.co/nY3BvnGTYo”

This was tweeted by an account imaginatively named ‘BLEEPTHEPOLICE’, which had over 21,000 followers on Twitter. Multiple accounts tweeted this tweet about Toronto Pride.

Other tweets include allegations of police violence against LGBT people.

““Off-duty NYC cop attacks lesbian couple for no reason, lies to get them arrested. https://t.co/BZxox3DIh0 https://t.co/Aj87lkaptG “”

This was from a redacted account, but from what we can reconstruct, it appears to have been written by an account called ‘NewYorkDem’. It links to a Raw Story article.

Often, the rhetoric that motivates the anti-police movement appears:

““RT @dstfelix: you have a country that kills trans, queer, gay, poc, women and all the intersecting identities every day thru structural violence””

Russia also created and amplified opposition using the Pride protests, with this tweet being tweeted by multiple bots:

“LOL VIDEO : Lefties Eat Their Own â€“ BLM Shuts Down Gay Pride Parade https://t.co/LnHDxj0uqO https://t.co/M6figdd8ew”

Outside of Pride Parades, Russian trolls also retweeted criticism directed at Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy:

“ RT @HUXTABLEJULIANA: AT LEAST BE TRILL … PPL OUT HERE PROMOTING SHADE AS SOMETHING EMPATHETIC LOL … ITS THAT LOW KEY TERF OPP SHIT”

And:

“RT @OpFerguson: TERFism is a form of fascism hope this helps @MeghanEMurphy @MerylSKavanagh @FemalesLikeUs @YAMavenThoughts”” “ RT @OpFerguson: Feminists arent nazis. But terfs are fascists. @MeghanEMurphy @MerylSKavanagh @FemalesLikeUs @YAMavenThoughts””

The above was tweeted by multiple Russian accounts.

Antifa, which is often associated with BLM, including in these troll tweets, is a popular topic, with thousands of tweets about it, most in opposition. Here’s one particularly nutty example:

““RT 10thAmendment: ðŸ’¥BLM =NEW BlackPanthers from 1960’s. ANTIFA = NEW KKK with all the masks/sticks/pepper spray. DO NOT BE FOOLED. #Trumâ€¦”

Other ones include allegations of antifa violence:

“TRANNY ANTIFA MEMBER PUNCHES YOUTUBER â€“ REGRETS IT IMMEDIATELY https://t.co/EwI3NdqER9 https://t.co/dLzzKE9gFB”

This was a popular tweet — there were numerous bots tweeting this particular witticism.

Russian trolls also tried conflating queer activists and antifa:

“RT @AshAgony: Queer anti-Trump protesters hung an upside down USA flag on the Manhattan Bridge in NYC this morning! #AntiFa”

Of course, this is only a limited selection of tweets: these are examples. I am not going to provide you with all ten million tweets. That’s too much. However, I think these examples are clear enough: the rhetoric you see to justify police being banned from Pride parades? It was clearly amplified, and occasionally created, by Russian trolls linked to Russian intelligence.