Today is Trans Pride Brighton. Like many other Prides, Trans Pride has had to abandon a physical protest march and celebration due to Covid-19. We’ve experienced profound loss over the past few months and now we also lose the ability to come together in a physical way to show our strength as a community, to demand respect, protection and dignity in our trans lives.
Our message must be heard loud and clear: trans rights are human rights. We affirm that trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities are valid.
Those of us who can continue to be visible in our own ways. We shall wave our flag from the tallest buildings. Jesse, a trans woman from Brighton who has been to Trans Pride for the past couple of years, says she will miss being out in the park with everyone this weekend. She said: “Trans Pride is a big deal. You’re out and you’re trans and proud.
“This year I will be watching virtual Trans Pride at home in front of a TV screen. Waving the flag gives me that yearly validity. It’s nice to do something, however small, to celebrate Trans Pride.”
Many will miss the magic of meeting other trans people, some for the first time, coming together as a critical mass, no longer being the only trans person in the ‘room’. Nothing can quite replace that feeling of not being alone, of meeting your kin, cut from the same cloth. When we take over the streets and the park we don’t have to explain ourselves.
For many too, coming to Trans Pride is the first time they are ‘out’ in public. It is an incredibly uplifting and empowering experience.
The trans community is resilient. We organise online, share information over message boards and can explore our identities in the cyber realm. In the past few years we’ve increasingly stepped out of the shadows and let the people of Brighton & Hove hear our roar! So today will be a bit different, but we have not disappeared. Now more than ever we celebrate how far we have come and we fight the good fight against those who would have us banished from public life.
Our visibility can make us vulnerable but it also gives us strength.
Happy Trans Pride, wherever you are in the world.
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