‘The pride police’ know how to use their truncheons

James Parker

December 03, 2024 18 Reactions

Pride in Australian beaches

Last summer, I arranged a social gathering at Coogee beach in Western Australia, regarded as one of Australia’s best 15 beaches. The gathering was made up of members of the peer-support network I facilitate for victim-survivors of childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual assault called the Survivors Support Network Australia.

The beach can be a challenging and yet healing place for survivors of sexual duress, and anyone struggling to overcome past trauma. It is a place where exposure of the body can be accepted without question or threat, and where a survivor can begin to heal through engagement with the softness of the sand and the movement of the ocean waters. Coogee beach is a favourite among survivors.

However, Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club took it upon itself last summer, as have other Australian surf clubs, to adopt a national Surf Lifesaving program created by Lifesavers with Pride  which demands that the pride flag be imprinted as chevrons on the fins of its rescue boards which lie erect in full view of visitors to local beaches.

Some of our support network’s members, of whom over 50 percent identity as LGBTQ, have been sexually assaulted as children or as adults by others who identify as LGBTQ. A few of our LGBTQ members are triggered by the Pride flag and can quickly regress back into a place of relived trauma.

I wrote to the President of the Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club highlighting that the rainbow chevron on rescue boards, which evidently signify Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for those in the LGBTQ community, was retraumatising some of the most vulnerable members of that very same community.

The flag has now come to symbolise Discrimination, Exclusion (particularly in its disregard for certain LGBTQ trauma victims) and Intolerance.

I pointed out that this exclusionary action by LGBTQ Lifesavers across Australia’s key beaches was denying the opportunity for some of the LGBTQ community’s most vulnerable citizens to heal and recover from trauma.

The CEO, Adam Weir, responded saying, “The SLSA Inclusion and Diversity Statement is a public commitment that everyone should feel safe and welcome on Australia’s beaches” [my highlight]. He ignored my complaint.

The President, Michael Rees, responded saying, “I hope that your members can understand that at Surf Lifesaving our mission is to make the beach a safe place for all persons, ethnicities and genders.” [my highlight]

Well, no, members of the Survivors’ Support Network Australia don’t understand why Surf Lifesaving is ignoring complex trauma of society’s most vulnerable and making public beaches unsafe places.

To add fuel to the fire, Rees then stated, “Although some in the community may view the rainbow chevron on the rescue boards as a symbol of inclusion for a particular group, we believe it represents a broader statement of inclusion for all groups and helps to overtly display that the club is welcoming of people from all different cultures, religions and abilities.”

Since when did the LGBTQ2 rainbow flag qualify to include all people when many Australian immigrants, religious bodies and diversely abled people stand opposed to what they see as a socially divisive flag?

McQuaker’s single phrase in Emo, and survivors’ heartfelt request to rid Coogee beach from rainbow chevrons, show that deliberate exclusion is at work.

The Pride flag is divisive

The Pride flag is being used to divide and hurt communities.

This is causing the average LGBTQ identifying person to be looked at with greater suspicion, which no decent person wants to happen. But what is the alternative when cruel totalitarian, or ‘totalitolerant’, policies are created, and inflexibly upheld by insensitive people?

Even the most broken and vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community are today being sacrificed and their needs disregarded so as to further The Gay Agenda.

Hypocrisy and bigotry are indeed alive and well and are being forced upon Western societies by oppressors who themselves claim to be the most oppressed.

Not long ago, the Babylon Bee, released a five-minute satirical video for Pride Month 2024.

‘Meet the Pride Police’ may have been intended as humour but for many people it hits too close to home and mirrors the stories above.

The 4,000+ comments beneath the video show an increasing ire across the globe to the intolerant demands now being forced upon societies by LGBTQ+ organisations.

The final words should be given to two of the video’s commentators whose words are shared by LGBTQ victim-survivors of childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual assault:

• “I am a gay man and I agree 100%... This gay celebration crap has gone too far. It offends me. Live your life. Be who you are but don't preach what you are not going to follow. At the end God will determine my fate. I am ready for that but along the way I will not push my beliefs upon others.”
• “I'm a lesbian and I totally agree the gay mafia has gotten way out of control. We used to want equality under the law. That's all. We didn't demand that everyone approved of how we live. The younger generation (whose terms and titles I don't understand and suspect many of which aren't even gay or lesbian) has become a gang of absolute tyrants. I think most rational vintage gays/lesbians see how ridiculous this is. And I think many of us are annoyed that these young they/ thems are unraveling [sic] the progress we made.”

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James Parker is a former gay activist and abuse survivor who supports people and their loved ones around sexuality, gender and identity. 

Image credit: Bigstock