Student Pride will be held at the end of LGBT History month (Feb 27 – Mar 1) centred around a daytime festival at the University of Westminster’s Marylebone campus opposite Madame Tussauds.
THE CITY OF BRIGHTON & HOVE lost the honour and kudos of staging Student Pride to London in 2014 through spiraling costs of staging such an event in the city and failure of the city council and local councillors to do anything to help this unique Pride remain.
The 2014 event in London was a huge success with over 120 Universities and colleges attending, attracting celebrities, activists and comedians including Zoe Lyons, John Waite (Great British Bake Off), John Amaechi and Lisa Power (former Head of Policy at THT).
This year will see Student Pride return to a focus on Trans* issues.
Evan Davis, presenter of Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, hosted the ‘Time for T’ session in 2014 and acknowledged the importance of the T in LGBT in recent years.
The session heard from Trans* activist Paris Lees who was runner up in this years Independent on Sunday Rainbow List.
Paris told the student Pride audience: “When you give Trans* people the help and support they need they can go on to flourish and prosper as everyone should be given the chance to do.”
48% of trans people in the UK under 26 have attempted suicide because of discrimination they suffer, sometimes even from within the LGBT community.
Student Pride have announced a special focus on the ‘T’ in 2015 by securing the exclusive screening rights of highly acclaimed Boy Meets Girl which won Iris Prize’s Best Feature Film in 2014. The film is a tender romantic comedy that explores what it means to be a real man or woman.
At the 2014 event, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson congratulated the organisers for sending a message to the world that London is a “safe and welcoming place to be a student”.
Student Pride began at Oxford Brookes University in 2005 as a response to the Christian Union’s ‘Homosexuality and the Bible’ talk and continues this mantra into its 10th year choosing to hold the 2015 event at the University of Westminster which last year allowed notoriously homophobic Sheikh Haitham al Haddad to speak at a charity dinner.
Bridget Nkomo, the Diversity Representative for Student Pride and former president of Westminster LGBTI society said: “Coming to Westminster opened doors so the society could highlight the importance of making the University a constant safe space for LGBTI people.”
Tickets for the event are on sale now at a pre-sale price of £5 for a weekend wristband.
For details of lineup and schedule, click here:
To purchase tickets online, click here:
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