“The first Pride was a riot.”

So said many signs at Pride, Edinburgh last Saturday.

It’s 50 years today that a community, after much discrimination and harassment, finally said it had had enough. Yet another Police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, pushed its customers over the edge, with trans women of colour leading the fightback.

Pink News has the story of how Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera threw things at the Police, sparking 3 nights of rioting and the birth of a movement that has won rights for the LGBT community. Back then, you could be sacked for being gay, you couldn’t marry and you had no rights if your partner died or took ill. Imagine what it must have been like to have your partner dying in hospital but his or her family won’t let you anywhere near them and you have no power to stop them. That was the reality for far too many people.

If Stonewall happened today, it would be all over Twitter in seconds. There would be rolling news coverage. 28th June 1969 was my husband’s 18th birthday.  I asked him if he was aware of what was happening and he said it was years later, through music, that he first became aware of Stonewall.

The Stonewall riots led to the joyous, colourful Pride celebrations we have today when the LGBT community celebrates and looks to advance its rights. At the moment, it’s trying hard not to see rights rolled back as the toxic atmosphere over Gender Recognition Act reform frightens legislators.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the BBC reported this week about the surge in hate crimes against transgender people. And when I say surge, I’m talking an 81% rise. We can’t stand by and see that happen.

Both our leadership candidates have been very vocal in calling out transphobia and supporting Gender Recognition Act Reform and you get the feeling from both of them that this is important to them.

I was slightly reassured this week by the remarks of the Scottish Cabinet Secretary responsible for the legislation. Two days before Pride Edinburgh, she had announced that she was slowing down the process and that there would be a further consultation. While it’s frustrating, at least she told the Equality Network reception in the Parliament on Tuesday night that she was committed to the reform. Importantly, she stated that trans men were men, trans women were women and that non binary people exist.

Today is about paying tribute, though, to all those who have gone before. People like my friend Gregan Crawford who was one of the group of people who ran gay discos in Scotland. Bernard Greaves, who was the first openly gay man to hold office in a political party and who persuaded the Liberal Party to campaign for gay rights. He talked about this in an interview for the LGBT Centre in Leicester he helped to create:

The important thing to realise is that although the world has changed for LGBT+ people, there is a range of needs that a Centre like this one needs to address. The change in the law with near equality, the same-sex marriage and the beginning of rights for trans people lead people to think that all the problems are solved and they are not. For young people growing up coming to realise they are gay, for a lot of people, in particular people from disadvantaged backgrounds, is very difficult. And it is even more difficult for trans people, and what’s happening with trans people is what happened to gay people in the seventies, as they become visible, the transphobia becomes visible too. What’s also happening is social attitudes on trans issues are changing as well, part of the role of the Centre is to promote that change. And the other thing about the Centre is that if you look across the UK, this place is pretty unique. Centres like this ought to exist everywhere because the need is everywhere and the need is not met.

For all the changes in society today, most people are brought up with the expectation that they are going to be straight in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. Coming to terms with the fact that you’re not like that, is difficult for everybody and the harder step is to identify yourself and meet other people who share that identity.

Half a century on, but, as Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton reminded that Equality Network Reception on Tuesday, the price of equality is eternal vigilance. Those who want to go backwards are on the up at the moment. We must keep making the calm and reasonable case for rights. That is tiring and frustrating but we will do it and we will win.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings