View on Twitter

View on Twitter

Radical Pride, Paris

The RBS Rainbow Network booted us off our meeting spot to take some Fun Mass Photos for their Woke Corporate Image, with three 15-ft balloon arches, multiple men wearing rainbow balloon wings with like a 6ft wingspan, and so on. They trod on our banners and called multiple members of the Radical Bloc slurs (mostly ableist shit like the r word).

So I stood behind them while they were taking their photos and paraded up and down with a giant flag with the word "FUCK" in rainbow letters. A winged fellow tried to block me and was real snippy with me but frankly I'm a bastard and being smug at me only makes me more powerful.

Got called attention-seeking for standing in front of the RBS shoot with a banner saying QUEER LIBERATION NOT RAINBOW CAPITALISM. Pointed out to the person who said it that RBS had THREE GIANT BALLOON ARCHES AND BRANDED SHIRTS.

"Let people enjoy priiiiiide 😢" "I mean, I'm having fun ripping the piss out of corporations, how about let me enjoy pride?" << my friend & Queer Icon LV

*to the tune of Solidarity Forever* HOMOPHOBIA IS OVER, HOMOPHOBIA IS OVER, HOMOPHOBIA IS O-OVER, BECAUSE NANDOS GAVE US FLAGS

"please stop screaming 'FUCK OFF', there are children here." (we moved, because while we didn't think that we should be disallowed from telling TERFs and corporate pride to fuck off, we genuinely didn't want to make the Gay Dads bloc feel bad or upset their kids.)

Ended up behind the SNP bloc two days after the SNP agreed to roll back support for trans youth to appease the TERFs within the party. Like 4 people marching under the SNP banners being followed directly by 50 or 60 angry radical queers singing "you can shove your consultation up your arse", "hey, hey, SNP, recognise nonbinary" and periodically "WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US SNP"

"oh ye cannae get yer rights frae the polis"

like 10 TERFs showed up and got such an overwhelmingly hostile reception that they dropped out of the march halfway round because nobody was buying their attempts to pretend to be the One True Voice Of Lesbians and lesbians were shouting "you don't speak for me!" at them, and obverse they dropped out of the march they had to stand there for like ten minutes before the whole radical bloc had passed them screaming TRANS RIGHTS and NO TERFS ON OUR TURF. There are like six incredibly butthurt articles up around the Internet about it - insert dril tweet "I'm not owned, I'm not owned"

3/4 of the organisers turned up in denim hotpants and fishnets, myself included, and it was great

I heard a lot of bullshit about how ~inappropriate~ any NSFW content at Pride is and then my friend turned up with her tits all the way out in a bond age harness, nipple tape and hotpants and sauntered along ahead of the radical bloc and it made me feel so much better

After the march, we hung out in the park and drank some beers and went to a gig and it was definitely the most fun I've ever had at Pride even though I was fueled entirely by white-hot rage all day, because everyone around me felt the same anger and I've never been in a bloc that kept up energy and noise so consistently for a whole march. The rest of the march was pretty subdued but we were going OFF because it has been a Bad Time to be queer lately, and we all screamed and chanted until our throats were raw and I could taste blood (then got sunstroke and watched angry rock bands chew out the cishetpatriarchy, cops at Pride, patronising lefty cishet men etc)

there were also some REALLY GOOD DOGGOS but there always are at protests

We were a really big and energetic bloc in the end, and I have to hope it went some way to lampshading the corporatism at Pride (FIFTEEN FOOT RBS BALLOON ARCHES)

HEY, COME OFF IT, PRIDE IS NOT FOR PROFIT