This is a living document. As People’s Pride evolves, we will update this document to better reflect who we are, our values, and our aspirations. Thank you for joining us in this journey.
Mission Statement
(or, what we do and why)
TO People’s Pride is Pride, reclaimed.
A radical, community-accountable Pride grounded in anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-carceral principles. We exercise in direct refusal of flagrantly-called Pride institutions that prioritize corporate visibility over community survival. Pride is not a platform for pinkwashing or corporate profit, it’s a political space rooted in resistance.
Our work is grounded in the understanding that queer and trans liberation is inseparable from all struggles against oppression and Palestinian liberation is central to broader anti-imperialist struggles. We stand in active solidarity with Black, Indigenous and racialized communities, disabled and mad people, sex workers, migrants and undocumented people, unhoused and precariously housed people, and everyone subjected to living at the intersections of systemic violence. We reject all forms of racism, anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, ableism, transphobia, whorephobia, classism, Islamophobia and antisemitism.
TO People’s Pride focuses on distributed organizing and collaborative capacity building: affiliated events run by and for the community, education dissemination, and tactics to encourage artist, organizer and community member divestment from complicit pride celebrations.
We are committed to building spaces rooted in harm reduction, mutual aid, accessibility and community accountability. Events must aim to be accessible and grounded in collective care, with attention to physical, financial, sensory and cultural access. We prioritize intergenerational connection, fair compensation and the redistribution of resources to those most impacted.
Participating events actively uphold this mission and must not engage in or platform institutions, narratives or funding that normalize occupation, apartheid or genocide. Participation is a political commitment, not a symbolic one.
Our Pride is not neutral.
Our Pride is not for sale.
Vision
(or, what we strive for)
After two bureaucratic battles demanding Pride Toronto adopt the motion for BDS and PACBI aligned policies, a decade of festival disruptions starting with Black Lives Matter – Toronto in 2016 continued in recent years by Coalition Against Pinkwashing and other ad-hoc groups, alternative Pride marches and events here in Tkaronto and Wild Pride in Tiohtià:ke — reclamation needs to happen without Pride Toronto’s cooperation.
We are building a pride that can refuse funding, partnerships or participation from corporations, institutions or governments complicit in exploitation, policing, incarceration, militarism or genocide. This includes entities that fund or support ongoing violence, and those that attempt to use arts, culture and Pride to normalize that harm. We require full transparency around funding and alignment, and we only accept support that does not contradict our values.