The Gay Officers Action League (GOAL), a group representing LGBTQIA+ members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), has announced plans to protest this Sunday’s NYC Pride March due to a policy barring officers from marching in full uniform with service weapons.
GOAL members will be joined by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on the west side of Fifth Avenue at 20th Street ahead of the march’s start.
At the heart of the dispute is the NYC Pride organiser, Heritage of Pride’s, no-weapons policy. While they’ve offered a compromise allowing GOAL members to march in uniform without carrying firearms, the officers maintain that wearing a full uniform includes being armed.
“Members of our organisation and our community feel that we need to be safe in the March and in the space that we are inhabiting together. That means no weapons,” said Kazz Alexander, co-chair of Heritage of Pride.
Despite this, Heritage of Pride has said they remain open to collaboration. “NYC Pride remains committed to finding a way to work with GOAL in our shared vision to improve policing as we continue creating safe spaces for the entire LGBTQIA+ community,” the group said in a statement.
GOAL, however, has accused Pride organisers of hypocrisy. Det. Brian Downey, GOAL President and the NYPD’s highest-ranking LGBTQIA+ officer, pointed out the contradiction in needing police for security while restricting their participation.
“We’re here to affect change. You’re not going to erase us. You have to deal with us,” he said, noting that GOAL members began marching in the 1980s and have done so in uniform since the group’s formal recognition in the mid-1990s. “I think it’s just as much of a protest for us than it is for everyone else.”
This is not the first time tensions have surfaced. In 2021, NYC Pride banned corrections and law enforcement groups from participating in events, citing a need to ensure safe spaces amid rising violence against marginalised communities, particularly BIPOC and transgender individuals.
At the time, GOAL’s leadership labelled the move as “shameful.”
Now, with this renewed standoff, Commissioner Tisch has strongly backed GOAL. “It is the height of hypocrisy that uniformed officers from GOAL are fit to line the parade route and keep everyone safe, but they are unable to march in their own uniform and under their own banner,” she said at a security briefing.
In a letter to Pride organisers, Tisch further condemned the compromise as “a PR stunt,” insisting that officers must carry their weapons when in uniform for safety reasons.
She urged Heritage of Pride to reconsider, calling on them to allow GOAL to march fully uniformed and armed.
