Scottish Pride event courts controversy with shifting rules on drag performers

By John Mack Freeman

Update: Free Pride Glasgow has made a complete 180, releasing this statement on Wednesday, July 22:

There was never a ban on drag queens and kings attending Free Pride.

There was a decision to not book any drag acts, which has been overturned. Free Pride now welcomes drag performers of all genders and gender identities.

Free Pride is inherently challenging; we have known that from the start. As a small organisation, we disagree with the highly commercialised and depoliticised nature of mainstream Pride. Our aim continues to be to create a safe, accessible space for the most marginalised LGBTQIA people.

This issue was picked up by many famous LGBTQIA bloggers, spreading this local issue internationally. Sadly, this attracted not just fair criticism, but also an immense amount of harassing, abusive behavior. This harassment took the form of rather nasty insults and threats which were aimed at free pride organisers. This kind of abusive behavior is unacceptable.

The original decision was made because many trans members of Free Pride have had negative experiences with drag acts veering towards racism, misogyny and transphobia; the lack of contact with the drag community contributed.

We made a mistake, and we apologise.

Drag is an art form, a form of expression and performance, a community with a rich history. The most useful comments and advice that we have been sent from around the world have been from trans people of colour and working class trans people who support drag and have let us know that, without it, they might not have had access to trans/queer culture at all. We are extremely grateful to those individuals who have contacted us to explain this.

Drag, like all forms of art and performance, can entertain us and challenge us. But it also has the capacity to perpetuate oppression such as misogyny, transphobia and racism. Free Pride is a safe and accessible space for all of us to join and celebrate.

We hope to learn from this in order to foster the kind of community we want to see. We believe there is a greater need for dialogue within, and indeed between the trans and drag communities. We look forward to creating spaces where these dialogues take place with mutual compassion and respect.

Thank you for reading, and we hope you’ll join us.

 


 

Free Pride Glasgow has been caught in the middle of a social media tug-of-war this week after they announced that they would be banning drag performers out of sensitivity to the trans community. Due to the backlash, they have slightly amended the rule, allowing drag performers to perform as long as they do not identify as cisgender. A statement about the change released from the organizing committee read:

“First of all, we would like to confirm that after a further consultation trans drag performers will be invited to perform at Free Pride on the 22nd August.

“The trans caucus and Free Pride as a whole thought protecting the privacy of trans drag performers was the most important thing, but trans drag performers have let us know that letting them perform is more important to them.

“People appeared to understand that we attempted to communicate that trans drag performers’ rights are secondary to other trans people’s rights.

“We did not mean to send this message and apologise to trans drag performers for unintentionally doing so. Unfortunately this also appears to have offended trans drag performers.”

“We understand that many, if not all other venues celebrating pride around Glasgow will have drag performers throughout the day and so we want to provide something different.

“We understand that drag is multifaceted and complex, and drag acts come from all angles and in a lot of different styles and we certainly do not want to attack individual drag queens or imply that all drag is inherently transphobic or problematic.

“However our focus for the day will be on creating an alternative that puts minorities within our community at the heart of event.”

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