London Trans+ Pride to return with urgent protest against Tory attacks and call to defend trans kids
London Trans+ Pride will kick off from rom Trafalgar Square at 1pm on Saturday 8 July. (London Trans+ Pride)
London Trans+ Pride will return this summer with a vital protest march, at a time when Westminster is locking its aim on the community.
The march is due to take place on 9 July and will aim to “celebrate the memory of trans lives taken and uphold the next generation of trans revolutionaries”.
It comes amid a wave of political and legislative attacks on the community both in the US – where state Republicans are targeting trans kids, athletes and gender-affirming healthcare with growing fervour, and in the UK – where prime minister Boris Johnson has left trans people at the mercy of barbaric conversion therapy practitioners.
Organisers say they will protest the “abhorrent and deliberate” move by Boris Johnson to exclude trans people from a ban on conversion therapy, as well as urge the government to bring in an “X” gender marker for driving licences and passports.
Late last year, the High Court declined an appeal for gender-neutral passports.
London Trans+ Pride will also include a call for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to be abolished, after a series of damaging interventions on trans rights by the equalities watchdog.
“The EHRC’s trans-exclusionary beliefs are aligned with those of gender-critical organisations such as the LGB Alliance, who are working to gradually strip trans people of their rights, which makes their clear lack of independence from the UK government even more worrying,” said London Trans+ Pride.
“The EHRC is actively damaging human rights for trans people. We deserve better: LTP is calling for the EHRC to be abolished.”
Organisers said London Trans+ Pride will “march in solidarity with Texan parents of trans children”. Last year’s event also highlighted trans youth.
Earlier this year, Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered officials to investigate gender-affirming care as “child abuse“. A court has temporarily halted the investigations, though the legal battle is far from over.
London Trans+ Pride said Abbott’s directive “clearly criminalises trans children and their families, and its apparent political motivation demonstrates growing anti-trans sentiments across the US and the UK, sowed by gender-critical (GC) groups”.
“We march, as always, to forge a path for all the trans people to come. We march for trans life.”
The announcement comes after thousands descended on London on Sunday (10 April) to demand that trans people be covered by a ban on conversion therapy.
Organisers estimated that at least 3,000 people gathered outside Downing Street to protest the move by Johnson.
Arthur Webber, a trans freelance journalist attending the protest, told PinkNews: “I’m attending today because there is no reason besides transphobia that conversion ‘therapy’ is acceptable for transgender people, but not for cisgender LGB people.
