Happy Trans Pride, wherever you are in the world.

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 for the second year. We’ve experienced profound loss over the past eighteen 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. Trans Pride Virtual Pride event, The Sofa Years is a superb opportunity to feel connected on this special day.

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

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. All our sofas are connected today, to one long lovely trans affirming sofa.

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.