I really don’t understand why you are (apparently) insisting that an institution that brutalizes and oppresses queer people, particularly transgender people and people of color, ought to have a presumptive right to take part in Pride.

Being an employee of the NYPD is not an innate characteristic that deserves civil rights protection. Being an employee of the NYPD is not an identity. Being an employee of the NYPD can be many things, but it does not include a presumptive right to come to Pride representing your employer.

GOAL members used to participate in Pride in civilian clothes protesting the policies and behavior of the NYPD.

They are welcome to continue doing that. I urge them to do that. I would embrace them for doing that.

But it’s not cool to just ignore the fact that the NYPD as an institution is right now, and I mean this very second, brutalizing queer people on purpose, and mostly people of color.

That matters, and it must be an intrinsic part of this conversation. We must fight the brutality of the NYPD. We must not ignore the anti-queer, racist behavior of the NYPD.

The NYPD has been barred from Pride in recognition of the fact that the institution is systematically, brutally, anti-LGBTQ and racist.

That has to matter. It just has to.

We can’t pretend that a few cops in GOAL make brutal racism so unimportant that we ignore it in a far larger institution.