History.
The People Of Pride is born from a desire to document our living history, and in no other way is that represented better than the image you see to your left.
Photographed is Brianna Ghey, a 16 year old trans girl murdered in broad daylight by two people of her own age. Sixteen years old. 16 years old, and her life was taken away from her in a brutal and premeditated assault carried out for no other reason then for the fact that she was a transgender person.
Now this story is not uncommon to the Trans community, and by extension the wider Queer community. We have faced significant losses, and we continue to do so every single year. And those losses include our people, people like Brianna, people like Nex Benedict, two children out of countless thousands lost due to hatred, due to homophobia, due to transphobia and due to the belief that we are somehow inherently less- that we who dare to strive outside the boundaries of what is known and what is comfortable and what is acquiescing to society, that we who try our best to live our lives as authentically to ourselves that we are lesser. That because we dare to exist, we deserve to be eradicated.
The People Of Pride is born out of a desire to document not only our existence but our unwilling and unflinching refusal to lay down and allow our eradication to happen. The People Of Pride is a living, breathing project, documenting the Queer and Trans communities in all our flavours, one person, one event, and one photograph at a time.
This project is not simply documenting a community, it is highlighting our resistance, our continued existence encompassing all of our highs and our lows, our sorrows and sadness, our joyous laughter and infectious elation, it is shining a beacon upon our existence so that a story like Brianna’s, like Nex’s is never repeated again.
Power.
The power that we exhibit as a community is all transcending- from the power of a Queer person holding their flag high against the never ending tide of oppression, to a lone drag act standing stalwart against the comments and actions that make up many of the micro acts of homophobia and transphobia that permeate society today, to a young Trans persons first experience at a Pride event- the power that every single person within our communities experience is a commonality, one single thread unifying otherwise insurmountable differences.
And that power comes from the right to protest, that the act of a single person standing up for their beliefs, and in our case, our very right to exist can change policies, powers and predetermined ideas. And again in no other way could that be represented then by the image you see to the left of you- one single photograph taken of a single person, standing up for their belief. The belief that there cannot and should not ever be Pride without the inclusion, acceptance and most importantly support of Sex Workers.
Pride could not exist in the form it does today (or even at all) without the support of our siblings, our friends, our mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and cousins who are Sex Workers. The Queer and Trans community have a stalwart connection and history with Sex Work, and so Pride could not and should not exist without Sex Work. Pride as we know it today, our venues and our spaces, from the backstreet clubs of yesterday to the new up and coming pubs of today could not exist without the support, activism and actions of Sex Workers. If a place defines themselves as Queer then they need to recognise and honour the space that Sex Workers rightfully claim and stand up against the erasure that we face.
For allowing a part of our community to be erased, is allowing yourselves to be conquered and eradicated.
Sex
Work
Is
Work.
Diversity.
Our communities are indescribably diverse, people of all kinds of backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, creeds, religions and beliefs are all united together by one common thread- by our queerness, or our kinkiness, or often times, both. Our diversities are our strengths, our diversities inform our beliefs, our actions and our decisions and our strengths, they inform our very being.
Every part, every small minuscule thread that connects and forms together to form The People Of Pride, and overall my entire bodies of work, comes from that strength in my diversity, in our diversity. The People Of Pride you could say was birthed from diversity, from a wish to document and explore our diversity, to make known the mark that we have upon society so that our strength, our diversity is not erased.
Because we, especially now, in every faucet of our communities, be you belonging to one or both or multiple or the thousands (yes, thousands) of subcultures within our communities face erasure. We face erasure on a global scale, our diversity is under threat- our existence as Queer and as Kinky people is under threat of extinction, and so our voices must raise together in protest. We must raise together.
We must raise and grow together, and stand up for our rights, for our beliefs and for some of us- our very right to exist. I ask of you now, would you be willing to stand with me? Would you be willing to stand with your mother, your brother, your father, your sons, your daughters, your cousins, aunts, nephews, uncles, friends, colleagues, loved ones, partners, wives, husbands, spouses?
Would you be willing to stand with us?
United We Stand,
Divided We Fall.
