London Trans+ Pride 2023, photo by John Lubbock, WikiMedia Commons
141 LGBTQ+, feminist and allied organisations have signed an open letter, written by Trans Safety Network (TSN), calling for the organisers of Pride events across the UK to take a stand against transphobia by barring all political parties advocating for or complicit in transphobia, including the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, from their events.
The letter, which was signed by 24 Pride event organisations from around the UK, criticises senior Labour and Tory politicians for their response to the recent Supreme Court judgment, which redefined sex for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010 as ‘biological sex’ (meaning, in practice, sex as registered at birth), and calls the Labour party “increasingly hostile to the interests of trans people.” The Supreme Court judgement has been largely uncritically praised by mainstream political parties, but has been criticised by trans community organisations such as TransActual as seeking to “exclude trans people wholesale from participating in UK society.”
Many in LGBTQ+ communities across the UK no longer feel that mainstream political parties represent their interests and this is reflected in the Pride events that have rejected any further involvement from those parties. A number of local Pride events across the UK have already acted to bar either political parties engaging in transphobia or all political parties altogether from having an official presence, including Bristol Pride, Belfast Pride and Birmingham Pride. In a post on Instagram, Stirling Pride, a signatory to the letter, said that they would be “barring all political parties advocating for or complicit in transphobia from our events.”
The letter issued a challenge to politicians to take action to defend the rights of trans people in a meaningful way, saying “if you won’t stand with us, you can’t march with us.”
A spokesperson for TSN said “Pride belongs to LGBTQ+ communities, political parties are not necessarily entitled to use our events for photo opportunities and self-promotion, especially if they are harming us. It is within the government’s power to introduce new legislation to protect the right of trans people to participate in public life. Every day that any party with representation in parliament doesn’t push for this, they are making a choice to allow trans people to be further marginalised.”
Another organisation supporting the letter, Middlesex Pride said "We at Middlesex Pride believe pride is political and that is because LGBTQ+ have historically had to fight for our rights. But now, trans people are facing unprecedented discrimination from our government so we fight for trans liberation.”
The open letter also attracted support from feminist organisations. Natacha Kennedy of Feminist Gender Equality Network said “Prides are still necessary because of the oppression directed at LGBTQ+ communities. Starmer’s Labour Party is implementing the most harmful and repressive anti-trans policies of any UK government in history. Both its puberty-blocker ban and its extreme interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement are designed to harm, oppress and segregate trans people as well as tacitly encouraging violence against us. Parties that support this are a danger to all minority groups. Consequently Labour, and other parties with transphobic policies are a danger to our communities and others and must not be allowed to pinkwash their oppressive actions.”
Explaining their support for the open letter, the campaigning group Merseyside Disabled People Against Cuts said “Trans and disabled people have a shared struggle, and disablism is frequently used to facilitate institutional transphobia. The assumption increasingly baked into new youth gender services is that neurodivergent youth up to the age of 25 lack the self-knowledge to know their own genders and make decisions about their medical care that they have the capacity to understand. This is an attack on the rights and bodily autonomy of all disabled people that has happened under both Tory and Labour governments. As a disabled people's organisation, Merseyside DPAC opposes such attacks on disabled trans people and stands in solidarity with all trans people.”
Further information: For more on the open letter and Trans Safety Network, contact [email protected]. The full open letter and a list of all signatories is available at https://transsafety.network/posts/open-letter-pride-events-stand-with-trans-people-no-pride-for-anti-trans-parties/