BlufBear

When a court ruled last week that Northumbria Police had breached their duty of impartiality by marching in Newcastle’s Pride parade, it sent a message that echoed far beyond the bounds of institutional protocol. The complaint, brought by gender-critical activist Linzi Smith, objected to uniformed officers joining an event she claimed promoted “gender ideology.” The court agreed, suggesting that visible support for trans-inclusive messaging compromised the neutrality of a public body.

But this ruling does more than nitpick the optics of one force. It flirts with a dangerous precedent: that standing visibly with LGBTQI people, particularly trans people, is now so politically loaded it must be avoided by those charged with protecting the public. If being seen beside a trans flag is cause for concern, what hope is there for queer visibility in any meaningful public space?

For me, as a Leatherman, the sight of a uniformed officer at Pride has always come with a heady mix of feelings: part attraction, part irony, part reckoning. The fetish of authority sits side-by-side with the memory of repression. It wasn’t long ago that men like me were thrown into cells for being who we are. Now, the same uniforms smile for selfies at Pride. Progress, perhaps. But far from perfect.

Yet the idea that police presence, rainbow-liveried vans and all, constitutes dangerous political partisanship is laughable… or it would be, if it weren’t so chilling. This is not about protecting democracy. It’s about rebranding our very existence as ideological contamination. It’s about retreating from visibility the moment it becomes inconvenient.

That same retreat played out, in a different form, in how Northern Pride itself was reorganised last year. For the first time, the main event moved from the open greenery of Exhibition Park to Times Square: a fenced-in, ticketed “Arena” ringed with corporate branding. Organisers spoke of increasing visibility across the city. But what was sold as inclusivity felt more like segregation by subculture.

Gone was the communal walk to the park, the ritual culmination of protest and celebration, shoulder to shoulder with strangers who felt like kin. Instead, the march looped from the Civic Centre and back again, ending not in a unifying gathering, but in dispersal: drag brunches here, student panels there, leather brunch on the quayside. The result? More visible individually, but more exposed and less protected collectively.

And that had consequences.

I was walking down Grey Street with a friend, both of us dressed for Pride. I was in full leather uniform: not as a gimmick, but as a statement. My identity, my heritage, is woven into every seam. Leather has always lived on the edge of acceptability, even in queer spaces. It doesn’t ask to be palatable. That day, I wore it proudly, until a group of lads, half-pissed in the sunshine, shouted “faggots” as we passed. They laughed. We kept walking.

But inside, I felt it. That old ache in the gut. Shame. Not at who I was, but at being made to feel I shouldn’t be seen. The thought slithered in before I could stop it: Maybe I brought this on myself. That’s the real poison of visibility without solidarity. When Pride becomes a series of branded events rather than a mass gathering, you walk through the cracks between them. And in those cracks, you are vulnerable. Alone.

The promise of Pride is safety through numbers, that for one day, we take up space together. We defy shame not by being loud in isolation, but by being unapologetic en masse. Fragment that into wristbands and venues, and you fracture not just the geography, but the psychological shield that Pride once offered.

And so we return to the question of the police. Their participation must come with accountability. But to declare their very presence: near a trans flag, near the idea of liberation as biased, is to hand power to those who already believe queer lives are too loud, too visible, too much.

Neutrality should not mean withdrawal. It should mean equal commitment to all members of the public, especially those most at risk. And Pride must reclaim its purpose; not a lifestyle expo or scattered itinerary, but a defiant act of collective visibility.

Because what we are at risk of losing isn’t just a parade. It’s the feeling that, for once, we’re not alone in our skin. That we belong: in leather, in drag, in glitter, in protest, in grief. And yes, even with queer coppers in uniform, so long as they remember what those uniforms once meant, and why they must mean something different now.

It’s Northern Pride today. The court has spoken, the critics are circling, and the question hangs in the air: what will the police do now? Will they shy away from visibility, fearing another complaint? Will they stand with us, or behind the barriers?

As for me, I’ll be there. Marching. Proud. And booted. Because we don’t step back when we’re told we’re too much.

We step forward.