Creating queer safe space: relational space-making at a grassroots LGBT pride event in Scotland

Abstract

Queer safe space is commonly understood simply as space that is safe for queer people. In this paper we seek to develop a more nuanced conceptualisation of queer safe space attuned to how the process of creating space as simultaneously queer space and safe space can mean making compromises with both safety and queerness. Our research uses a case study of ‘Free Pride’ a grassroots LGBT Pride group in Glasgow, Scotland that sought to create a radical and inclusive event space, particularly for transgender people, but attracted controversy when it banned drag performers from the event, before reversing this decision. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the organizers of Free Pride, alongside online statements collected from those involved in the controversy, we show how the contradictions and complexities that arose from the group’s decision and its reversal highlights the contested political underpinnings of contemporary Pride events and the potentially fraught relations that can exist between certain identities within LGBT communities. Ultimately, Free Pride’s decision-making raised questions over how queer people relate to one another at Pride events, the inclusiveness of drag for trans identities, and the importance of seeing and being with one another in Pride spaces. We argue that although the process of queer space-making involved these complex and contradictory negotiations between safety and queerness, Free Pride ultimately created a queer safe space focused on queer collectivity.