Call for change thrusts Pride London under harsh spotlight

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Tumult is raging in the organization that puts on London’s Pride festival, after months of leadership upheaval and now a push for more diversity on its board to better represent the city’s LGBTQ+ community.

The future of Pride London Festival, also known as Pride London, looked uncertain in the fallout of a meeting Monday night, where those pushing for change wanted votes held on two motions – one to dissolve Pride London’s board of directors, and another to scrap the organization itself.

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A petition to get the motions in front of the board triggered the meeting, but the votes were never held because of a lack of a quorum. About 60 members showed up, but 100 were needed to hold the votes, the group’s acting president said.

The motions are expected to return at a meeting this fall, with frustrations mounting about Pride London’s future.

Ben Benedict, one of the organization’s founding members, accuses those behind the petition of trying to “destroy” Pride London from within.

“They are trying to burn this organization to the ground,” he said.

A key issue raised by those calling for change is not enough visible racial and gender minority representation on the Pride London board.

Benedict said he’s all for that diversity, but that people can’t be forced to step forward as candidates to be voted onto the board.

“I would love that,” he said of increased diversity. “Those communities need representation. But I can’t just go out and make people stand up.”

Rayne Fisher, one of the people involved with the petition, said the goal is not to end the Pride festival but to “restart” the organization behind it.

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Fisher, the  former co-chair of Pride London’s transgender committee, said members of minority and marginalized groups are attending alternative Pride options, such as Wortley Pride in London’s Wortley Village, which he attributes to a board “not operating in the best interests of the community anymore.”

“The Pride London board has basically alienated the community, and especially the marginalized folk within the community,” said Fisher. He said he was warned about discrimination within the organization before he got involved earlier this year.

Fisher has since stepped down and distanced himself from the organization, citing “negative experiences” as the reason. At a meeting in June, he said, he was misgendered by a board member who addressed him by saying “listen lady,” when Fisher uses he/they pronouns.

“It’s a derogatory thing because generally a trans person goes through great efforts to be recognized by the identity that they feel best suits them.

“When proper conduct has been laid out, and the language has been given to you and you continue to go against it, that choice just blatantly says, ‘I don’t respect you,’” Fisher added.

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“In a word, it’s dehumanizing,” he said.

The organization’s board is made up of six people, which now include four white men and two white women.

Pride London is on its third leader since early May, with its president at the time removed in a contentious board vote after complaints about “repeated failures” to use the preferred pronouns of members of the organization, according to two board members at the time.

That former president, Rick Renaud, could not be reached for comment.

Renaud was replaced by the organization’s vice-president John Fuller. He became acting president but stepped down less than three weeks later in a move he chalked up to “infighting within the board” about the former president’s ouster.

“It was a regular and unapologetic misgendering of humans,” said Fuller, who contends the former president “would be corrected and then do it again the next day.”

The turnover at the top continued with Michelle Paradis taking over as acting president after Fuller resigned. Paradis remains in her role.

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At the June meeting where he said he was misgendered, Fisher said the board member who did so was called out and an argument resulted. Fisher said that turn of events surprised him, because the group had just parted ways with its president a month earlier over the same issue.

“We (had) just had a president leave for this very reason . . . continuously misgendering trans people within the community,” he said.

Since reducing their involvement with Pride London, both Fisher and Fuller have become aligned with the contingent calling for change.

Fisher said the petition is a “last resort” move, giving members a chance to vote on “essentially just restarting” the organization with a board better reflective of the LGBTQ+ community.

But Benedict said it feels like members of the community are “turning” on the people who built the organization, and he doesn’t understand why.

“Closing down a successful non-profit is not progress, especially when it’s so needed,” he said, referencing an uptick in hate-motivated occurrences targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community in recent years.

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As one of seven founders of Pride London in the early 2000s, Benedict said he’s proud of the progress it has made for the community in London.  He cites, as an example, seeing gay and lesbian couples walking around and holding hands downtown, something he said would never have happened 20 years ago.

The organization holds an annual 10-day summer festival – the latest edition wrapped July 21 – that ends with a parade through the downtown.

Before Monday’s meeting, Paradis said she doesn’t believe dissolving the board is the best way to address the issues behind the petition.

“I can only sit here and do the best work that I know how to do for the community,” she said. “I think we all just need to remember that we are all fighting for the same common goal.

“At the end of the day, if the community feels like the organization needs to be gone, then so be it,” she said.

After Monday’s meeting, Paradis said those pushing for change had a chance to be heard and the group’s members will have another opportunity to vote on the motions to dissolve Pride London and its board at its annual general meeting Nov. 21.

“I think this is a great start for the future of Pride London Festival,” she said. “I think it’s about time that we open the floor for the community and we should have a long time ago.”

nbrennan@postmedia.com

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