
Bee Bailey (UK), Ambassador for Trans Progression and Michalis Lolis (Greece) from the European LGBT Police Association (EGPA), by invitation of The Interpride President, and financed by the European Parliament, attended Athens, Greece for the Interpride AGM and World Pride Conference 2019 to participate in presentations and panel work exploring better working and engagements between police and Pride Organisers at Pride around the world.
The AGM and Conference took place between 17-20th October 2019.
EGPA representatives were privileged to again be side by side with Dutch colleagues from Roze in Blauw (Dutch LGBT Police Association and EGPA members) as part of the conference. Bee and Michalis delivered panel discussions/presentations at the event that totalled 340 Participants from 179 Pride Organisations covering 60 countries from across the globe. Bee explored the history of the good and the bad experiencies the of police and LGBT communities, with two themes aiming to achieve a far greater relationship in our futures, demonstrating police participation at pride events were far more than recent allegations of ‘Police Marketing’. Evidencing how the police service is now a far greater aware and diverse family but with work to be done, asking for recognition that ‘our history does not define who we are today’ and ‘the police are the public and the public are the police’. Michalis explained his role for the last three years at Police Headquarters as the vice lead in hate crime combatting racist violence in Greece for the Attica region, reflecting on Greek attitudes both in the police and publically and a challenging but progressive journey during his time as a gay police officer in Greece.
Article written by Bee.