Today veterans of London’s first ever Pride march in 1972 gathered to re-trace their steps and walk the original route. Members of the UK’s Gay Liberation Front marched from St Martin-in-the-Fields to Speakers Corner at Marble Arch, commemorating the beginning of a movement that would bring about the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
The march featured veterans including Peter Tatchell, Stuart Feather, Bruce Howard Bayley, Eric Ollerenshaw, Nettie Pollard and John Lloyd, many of whom shared their reflections on the events of 1972. In the current political and media landscape, in which transphobic discourses remain commonplace, speakers reminded the hundreds in attendance that transgender people were part of the gay liberation front from the very beginning. They noted that attempts to separate the transgender community from the LGB community must be resisted.
Pride Parade
Tomorrow, on 2nd July London’s Pride in London will take place. It will include a parade marching from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall, beginning at noon. After the parade which will trace the original route from 1972, four stages located in Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Holden Square and Dean Street will host over 100 performers.
However, Peter Tatchell, a prominent LGBT+ rights activist, and one of the roughly 30 Gay Liberation Front activists who organised the 1972 march said that: “A lot of us are very concerned that the main official Pride event has become too corporate and commercial. It often looks like a huge PR, marketing and branding exercise by big companies.”
He added that “The human rights dimension has been lost. The original Pride was both a celebration and a protest… LGBT+ human rights has not been front and centre of Pride for many, many years.”
However, at this year’s parade, veterans of the 1972 march will lead the parade on Saturday.
Policing Pride
There has also been much controversy around the involvement of the Metropolitan Police in the upcoming Pride parade. On 14th June, many LGBT+ groups had signed an open letter calling on Pride in London to ban the police from the event, as well as a ban on the participation of corporations who facilitate policing. Yesterday, just days before the parade, Pride in London declared that uniformed police would not be welcome at the parade.
This comes at a point of particular distrust between the LGBT+ community and the police, after the mishandling of the murders of four queer men by Stephen Port and the Met was placed under special measures.
Commenting on the issue of police presence at pride, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants said: “Due to our deep-rooted concerns with policing – and the history of Pride itself as resistance against police – it is time to end the practice of police participation in Pride each year.
“It is time to end the presence of police banners. Their presence not only offends by being undeserving, it deters others from celebrating with their community.
“While individual officers may or may not be queer, the organised presence of police at Pride en masse provides a platform to an institution that represses us.”
Key Issues
To the extent that Pride remains a protest, there will be many key issues facing the LGBT+ community on the agenda on Saturday. Chief among these will be the Government’s exclusion of the transgender community from the upcoming conversion therapy ban, and wider transphobia in the UK’s political and media discourse.
Commenting on this, Peter Tatchell said: “A conversion therapy ban that excludes our trans siblings is not a ban at all.”
As well as being a domestic event, Pride has always had a global outlook. Beyond the UK, there remain 69 countries who still criminalise same-sex relations, and 12 countries in which homosexuality is punishable by death.
LGBT+ Commission
Addressing some of these inequalities facing the LGBT+ community, the LGBT+ Commission on Monday launched its interim findings report. The report details a community that is underserved in the current policy landscape, focusing in on 4 areas of policy:
- Healthcare, mental health, sexual health and fertility
- Housing and homelessness
- Hate crime, domestic abuse and sexual violence
- Employment, employability and skills
Speaking on the launch of the report, Ben Howlett the chair of the LGBT+ Commission said: “the heart of the LGBT+ commission is collaborative, it is based on a determination to bring all levels of government together with civil society and employers to help produce a co-ordinated and sophisticated implementation plan to help deliver policies affecting LGBT+ people as effectively as possible.”