In a bold move to prioritize the safety and dignity of marginalized communities, organizers of Melbourne’s 2025 Midsumma Pride Parade requested that workplace-based groups, including police, march without uniforms—a decision grounded in trauma-informed practice. The directive acknowledges what LGBTQ+ and especially Indigenous queer communities have long known: the presence of uniformed police can trigger fear, not celebration.

For many, police uniforms represent not protection, but the enforcement of state violence. Across Australia and globally, LGBTQ+ communities—particularly trans people, people of color, and Indigenous people—have been repeatedly criminalized, surveilled, and brutalized by police. Pride itself was born from resistance to this violence. The presence of armed officers in parades erodes that history.

Rather than honoring the experiences of those most impacted by police brutality, some groups opted to withdraw when asked to forgo uniforms. But the decision to center healing over performative inclusion is a powerful reminder: Pride is not for institutions but for the people, especially those who have been silenced and harmed.

Transgender Victoria also withdrew from the parade, citing community discontent with ongoing harms perpetrated by the police. Their decision reflects a growing demand for true accountability, cultural change, and systems of justice that actually serve queer and trans lives.

This year’s Midsumma Pride Parade was a reclamation and a refusal to accommodate the parade for the comfort of power structures. Instead, it returns focus to solidarity, safety, and joy for the communities Pride was built to uplift.

Source: The Guardian – “Victoria police withdraw from Melbourne’s Midsumma Pride parade after uniform ban” (22 Jan 2025)