London Trans+ Pride is breaking records

The sun has been a rare sight in Lon­don this sum­mer but this week­end it was out in full force as tens of thou­sands gath­ered in the city’s cen­tre. In the shad­ow of the icon­ic BBC tele­vi­sion cen­tre friends, lovers, fam­i­lies and more packed out the streets. Above their heads pink, blue and white flags of trans pride flut­tered in the wind. There per­haps could not have been a bet­ter time for the fifth iter­a­tion of London’s Trans+ Pride.

We are just weeks into a new Labour gov­ern­ment that promised ​‘change’. Light on detail, the promise has tak­en a num­ber of forms. From leav­ing the sleaze of suc­ces­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive Prime Min­is­ters behind to ​‘fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty’ to an end to cul­ture wars, each form has been vague and amor­phous but all point to the same clean break from 14 years of Tory rule.

In that con­text it is, under­stand­ably, per­plex­ing that just days into the new gov­ern­ment Health Sec­re­tary Wes Street­ing would choose not only to con­tin­ue the Conservative’s tem­po­rary ban on puber­ty block­ers for trans young peo­ple, but to make it per­ma­nent. Writ­ing on Twit­ter then Labour MP Zarah Sul­tana stat­ed ​“Labour’s man­i­festo promised to ​“remove indig­ni­ties for trans peo­ple who deserve recog­ni­tion & accep­tance”. That entails end­ing the Tories ban on puber­ty blockers.”

On the ban, Mer­maids, a char­i­ty that sup­ports young trans peo­ple, told Huck, ​“There are many ways to exist as trans out­side of the med­ical route, there­fore, Mer­maids does not advo­cate for any one path­way. Evi­dence shows puber­ty block­ers give young peo­ple time to fig­ure out who they are and have pos­i­tive long-term impacts on well­be­ing and life sat­is­fac­tion for those young peo­ple who decide to use them. Fur­ther­more, out­side of gen­der dys­pho­ria, puber­ty block­ers are also used as a treat­ment for pre­co­cious puber­ty, yet only the use of puber­ty block­ers for trans youth is deemed unsafe.”

In a thread on Twit­ter Health Sec­re­tary Wes Street­ing defend­ed his deci­sion to imple­ment an indef­i­nite blan­ket ban on puber­ty block­ers for trans chil­dren and young peo­ple. He stat­ed, ​“children’s health­care must always be led by evi­dence. Med­i­cine giv­en to chil­dren must always be proven safe and effec­tive first”. He added that the Cass review — an inde­pen­dent review into gen­der iden­ti­ty ser­vices for young peo­ple and chil­dren — found ​“there is not enough evi­dence about the long-term impact of puber­ty block­ers for gen­der incon­gru­ence to know whether they are safe or not, nor which chil­dren might ben­e­fit from them”.

The Cass review does not rec­om­mend a blan­ket ban. This morn­ing the high court ruled the ban, brought in using emer­gency leg­is­la­tion by the pre­vi­ous Health Sec­re­tary Vic­to­ria Atkins, has been ruled to be law­ful.

Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer took to the dis­patch box for his first Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions last week. The sec­ond ques­tion asked was by Nadia Whit­tome, Labour MP for Not­ting­ham East. Tak­ing to her feet she stat­ed, ​“many young trans peo­ple and their fam­i­lies are extreme­ly con­cerned about the restric­tions on puber­ty block­ers imple­ment­ed by the last gov­ern­ment” before ask­ing whether Starmer would meet with young trans peo­ple, their fam­i­lies and organ­i­sa­tions sup­port­ing them to hear their concerns.

Speak­ing to Huck Whit­tome said, ​“It’s so impor­tant that the move­ment for trans rights keeps up the pres­sure on our new gov­ern­ment to improve trans peo­ple’s lives. Trans peo­ple’s lived expe­ri­ences should be at the cen­tre of this pol­i­cy mak­ing. That’s why I asked the Prime Min­is­ter, in the first PMQs of the new gov­ern­ment, to meet with young trans peo­ple about the puber­ty block­ers ban. There should be noth­ing about them with­out them.

“Trans Pride is hope in action. With every year Lon­don Trans Pride gets big­ger and more cities start to host their own — like Not­ting­ham this year,” she added.

The ban­ning of puber­ty block­ers comes as the dis­course around the rights of trans peo­ple con­tin­ues to be incred­i­bly tox­ic and trans­pho­bic hate crimes reach his­toric highs. Lat­est fig­ures show that in the year up to March 2023 there were 4,732 hate crimes against trans peo­ple, which equat­ed to a rise of 11% on the pre­vi­ous year. A report by the Home Office stat­ed that ​“trans­gen­der issues have been heav­i­ly dis­cussed by politi­cians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences.”

It’s why many of those indi­vid­u­als and organ­i­sa­tions involved in organ­is­ing or sup­port­ing Lon­don Trans+ Pride 2024 say the event is so important.

Not a Phase is one of those organ­i­sa­tions. The trans-led, grass­roots char­i­ty was formed in 2020 and is ​“com­mit­ted to uplift­ing and improv­ing the lives of trans+ adults, through aware­ness cam­paign­ing, social projects and fund­ing trans+ lead ini­tia­tives. Founder of the char­i­ty Dani St James told Huck, ​“We are immense­ly proud of our ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the incred­i­ble team at Lon­don Trans+ Pride. Each year, they bring us togeth­er to con­tin­ue the vital fight for trans lib­er­a­tion and to sup­port one anoth­er. The sea of peo­ple unit­ed for LT+P sends a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the nation and the world: we remain strong in the face of adver­si­ty. To those who feel lost or iso­lat­ed, know that we are here for you with open arms. This year is the most crit­i­cal year for LT+P yet; in the cur­rent cli­mate and the after­math of our elec­tion, we need uni­ty more than ever.”

This year’s event had been due to begin in Trafal­gar Square, right next to White­hall and the heart of gov­ern­ment. The call­ing of a far-right demon­stra­tion in the square by ex-leader of the Eng­lish Defence League Tom­my Robin­son led to safe­ty con­cerns and, even­tu­al­ly, a chang­ing of the route of Lon­don Trans+ Pride and the deploy­ment of hun­dreds of stew­ards along the route. A sep­a­rate counter demon­stra­tion to the far right was organ­ised by Stand Up to Racism, Peace & Jus­tice Project and more. 

Samuel Sweek, spokesper­son for Peace & Jus­tice Project told Huck, ​“The rise of the far-right and fas­cist pol­i­tics in Britain and across Europe is a cause of great con­cern for us all. The polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment has allowed breath­ing space for hate and divi­sion in our com­mu­ni­ties, we must stand with those tar­get­ed by the likes of Tom­my Robin­son and his thugs. 

“We refuse to cede any ground to big­otry, racism, Islam­o­pho­bia, homo­pho­bia, trans­pho­bia or any oth­er form of hate they attempt to bring to our streets. Our strug­gles are all linked and when the politi­cians fail, it is the peo­ple who must fight back. That’s why across mul­ti­ple demon­stra­tions this week­end it was amaz­ing to see such a strong rejec­tion of this hate in all the many forms it takes”.

There were nine arrests relat­ing to the Tom­my Robin­son demon­stra­tions includ­ing assaults on those at the Stand up to Racism demon­stra­tion and a stew­ard of Trans Pride. By con­trast, Trans Pride was a peace­ful march through cen­tral Lon­don which organ­is­ers stat­ed was ​“open to trans+ peo­ple, the LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty and allies, join­ing in a union of cel­e­bra­tion for trans+ lives, past and present, stand­ing for trans+ rights and march­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tine, Sudan, Haiti and Congo”.

Speak­ing to Huck, Lon­don Trans+ Pride co-founder Lewis G. Bur­ton said, ​“Lon­don Trans+ Pride 2024 was the biggest one to date! This show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the trans+ com­mu­ni­ty this week­end was so pow­er­ful and poignant — in a time when we need the public’s show of sup­port now more than ever. We have con­fir­ma­tion that 55,000 – 60,000+ peo­ple were in atten­dance at its high­est point, mean­ing that this made Lon­don Trans+ Pride the biggest trans pride march in the world right now. Often at times due to vit­ri­ol and big­otry inflat­ed by the UK media that our com­mu­ni­ty faces we often feel like we live in a coun­try where we are not loved and respect­ed. This week­end was a beau­ti­ful reminder to not only the glo­ri­ous trans+ com­mu­ni­ty but to Lon­don, the new Labour gov­ern­ment and the rest of the world that trans+ peo­ple are loved and this love is a huge majority”.

Despite changes to the route the march end­ed at Welling­ton Arch next to the city’s Hyde Park as it had pre­vi­ous­ly done. Crowds were addressed by speak­ers includ­ing Heartstopper’s Yas­min Finney, Trans Legal Clin­ic founder Olivia Camp­bell-Cavendish, Trans Pris­on­er Alliance founder and activist Sarah Jane Bak­er.

Speak­ing in sup­port of the event poet and musi­cian Kae Tem­pest told Huck, ​“Lon­don trans pride has giv­en me so much. It’s been an impor­tant moment of strength gath­er­ing for me, as I con­tin­ue on my jour­ney towards liv­ing tru­ly, as myself. Walk­ing through Lon­don all togeth­er, we can feel a deep sense of com­mu­ni­ty, accep­tance, shared pain and cel­e­bra­tion that rous­es the spir­it and soothes the soul. To be able to encounter and affirm each oth­er this way is beau­ti­ful and impor­tant. I am grate­ful to the organ­is­ers and to the com­mu­ni­ty. It’s been more than a march for me these last few sum­mers, it’s been a lifeline.”

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