Over the last decade, Pride has been professionalized and depoliticized: paid staff, marketing partnerships, VIP tickets, security trainings with the FBI. Pride is no longer a grassroots expression of queer struggle. It has become a PR-friendly festival designed to keep us passive and "proud," but only so long as we make no demands.

Corporate Pride is a relatively new phenomenon, and one which can be rejected. We do not have to accept the false representation of our identities, communities, or history of resistance by harmful corporate and government entities. The Pride of the future will represent queer struggle and queer joy. It will honor our past and present, and fight for the liberation of all oppressed and exploited peoples across the globe.

As historical materialists, Marxists see gender norms, roles, and hierarchies as both originating in, and playing an active role in, class struggle. Socialism will be a foundation to build a world that fosters “your own right to explore and define who you are” because for us, socialism means the real historical defeat of every social form that hems in and suppresses this very right.

We are a coalition of organizers here to share the problems of Corporate Pride, Police in Queer spaces, and to expose that a number of the corporations sponsoring pride are directly linked to the oppression of queer communities and the genocide of Palestinians.

Cincinnati Socialists was kicked out of Northern Kentucky Pride for sharing Pro-Palestine literature. The Jewish comrades running the table were called antisemitic by a Cincinnati Pride organizer. Many top sponsors of the festival have direct ties to the state of Israel, so it’s no surprise that organizers of Cincy Pride would suppress those who oppose the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. Read more about Cincy Pride sponsors here.