I sent this letter to the Pride organisers yesterday.
I was proud to be described as an LGBT+ ally some years ago at a Pride event – indeed I have been supporting LGBT issues all my adult life at both a personal and institutional level.
I have also been proud of what my party, the Liberal Democrats, has achieved in this area – from opposing Section 28 to proposing the Alan Turing Law, bringing in equal marriage and championing trans rights.
I was therefore deeply shocked and unhappy that political groups are being banned from Pride marches this year. In our case LGBT+ Lib Dems have been in the forefront of the party’s campaigns. It feels like a terrible snub for them to be banned from an event that they have always enthusiastically supported. Without the Lib Dems some of the freedoms that are now enjoyed by people on Pride marches would not have happened.
I should also add that all of us, of whatever political party or none, should also be encouraging LGBT+ groups within other less supportive parties. For some it is a deeply uncomfortable place to be, but their groups are essential to bring about a change of culture from within.
I would therefore ask you to reconsider the decision to ban political groups from Pride events this year.
They have just replied to say:
“We are currently in talks with your colleagues on the way forward.”
Let’s hope the ban is lifted.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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13 Comments
I think it’s worth reflecting on why some Pride committees felt including our party in the suspension was necessary. It’s certainly true that public facing messaging from the leadership and HQ has been disappointing in both volume and content. It’s clear we’ve reached the limit of LGBT+ Lib Dems (and Lib Dems who are LGBT+) to represent the party to the community, and we now need the party itself, its leaders and accounts, to step up to the mark.
It’s up to Pride organisers to determine who is welcome, ultimately. It’s up to the party to regain their trust.
…Put simply, this should be about the feelings of the Pride organisers and the trans community in particular, and how those can be met. It shouldn’t be about the party’s feelings for being suspended.
John – Your last post. It shouldn’t be either/or. It should be both.
The official Lib Dem response was:
“The Supreme Court judgement has caused concern and left people unsure what it means to them. The government must now provide further clarity and clear guidance that ensures everyone’s rights and dignity, including protecting women and trans people’s rights, as the ruling makes clear.”
(From https://www.libdemvoice.org/official-lib-dem-reaction-to-todays-supreme-court-judgement-77376.html )
To say that is mealy-mouthed and disappointing is an understatement. I can totally understand the people who run Pride deciding that this, frankly, is not enough.
Has the party officially responded to the frankly transphobic proposed guidelines from the EHRC/ Falkner? These appear to flout the Supreme court judgement in a number of ways, while she ironically suggests others are ignoring it.
Jenny Barnes – The party hasn’t officially responded as far as I know, but all of the official party diversity AOs collectively called for Kishwer Falkner and Bridget Phillipson to resign over the matter.
@Jenny Barnes
The EHRC interim guidance is the logical interpretation of the Supreme Court decision which, itself, results from the Equality Act and equalities legislation that preceded it.
Maybe, rather than attacking the EHRC guidance, or the EHRC itself, or the Supreme Court judgement, or the Supreme Court itself, …we should be campaigning for an amendment to the Equality Act to make clear that sex should be interpreted as referring to gender identity rather than biological sex?
The problem is that our party hasn’t opposed the ECHR’s provisional guidance and crucially has not said it wants a change in the law to undo the effects of the ruling.
We are therefore supporters of the status quo which makes us an anti trans party. Why should any pride organisation want us present whilst this is our current position?
Trans people want their rights restored, not words of concern from people that don’t want to restore their rights.
*Meant to say EHRC not ECHR
mike peters “The EHRC interim guidance is the logical interpretation of the Supreme Court decision”
I disagree. And unlike some commenters I have read the judgement.
What it actually implies is that in those cases where it is necessary and proportionate for some reason to exclude trans women from single sex spaces ( a typical example might be a domestic abuse centre) , then the exclusion will extend to trans women who hold a GRC, who otherwise would count as women for all purposes.
Nowhere does it say that trans people should now be excluded from ALL single sex spaces. The “guidance” is just overreach.
Hello Jenny,
I don’t claim to have anything like your level of expertise on this area, nor the judgement, but having just looked at the EHRC interim guidance, there are only four places where I can see it using the word “all” and for three of them the word isn’t referring to single sex spaces.
The one occasion it does use the word all is used in relation to single sex spaces is in the following when it states “In workplaces, it is compulsory to provide sufficient single-sex toilets, as well as sufficient single-sex changing and washing facilities where these facilities are needed.”
followed by
“In workplaces and services that are open to the public:
– trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex.”
Looking at this, the workplaces part seems to be correct, but I can’t find anything that refers to “services that are open to the public”. Is that the part of the guidance we should be disputing?
Thanks,
David
The organisers of Pride in those cities appear to have forgotten that Pride was historically originally largely about defending the rights of the LGB community. The right to love who you want and form relationships with whoever you want without fear of discrimination – which is not at all the same as the right to claim a gender different from your biological sex. Many liberals support both rights, but there’s nothing inconsistent about supporting the one but not the other.
In order to be welcome at Pride, the organisers are now demanding an unreasonable level of ideological purity regarding your views on the T part of LGBT, which looks to me like an attempt to silence the many people who support or fought for LGB rights while also either holding gender-critical beliefs or who are broadly accepting of the Supreme Court judgement (such as groups like the LGB Alliance). I don’t believe this is within the spirit of either liberalism or the historical roots of the gay rights movement, and I’d certainly hesitate about supporting Pride while the organisers continue this stance (although I realise that’s not really the same reasons as Mary Reid has for objecting to the organisers’ decision).
David Evans “In workplaces and services that are open to the public:
– trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities…”
Before the supreme court judgement it was not considered necessary & proportionate to exclude trans people form their appropriate gendered facilities in general, and the introduction of guidance that immediately does so in all cases is not necessitated by the judgement.