Nadia Whittome on... Pride

Ever since I was a young teenager, Notts Pride has been one of the highlights of my calendar. I remember first going with my school friends when I was thirteen - back then as a very enthusiastic ‘ally’ - and giggling as I collected free condoms from charity stalls, which I had absolutely no use for. As I grew up and realised I was queer, Pride became far more special: a celebration of my community and the freedoms we’ve won.

Last year, I was honoured to open Notts Pride, introduced by fabulous drag queens, and then had the time of my life at the Gladrags afterparty, dancing like there’s no tomorrow. But much as I love the music, costumes and glitter, it’s important to remember that Pride isn’t just a party - it’s a protest.

The first Pride was a riot. The Stonewall uprising began on 28 June 1969, when police raided Stonewall Inn, a popular underground gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. Fed up with constant harassment by authorities, the queer community stood up and fought back.

Among the rioters were gay men, lesbians and bisexual people. There were trans women and gender non-conforming people, who often had to live off sex work after being rejected from other jobs. There were homeless teens, working class people from immigrant backgrounds - a diverse group of queer people united by the experience of being marginalised by society. Their rebellion has since been commemorated with annual marches in cities and towns across the globe.

We’ve come a long way since the days of the Stonewall riots. Today, queer venues can operate openly and legally. Overt discrimination against LGBTQ+ people is banned by law. LGBTQ+ couples can get married and have children together. Young people learn about the existence of queer identities at school. These and many other advances didn’t happen spontaneously: they were won by people who had the courage to fight for them.

Unfortunately, in recent years, it feels like this progress in the UK has stalled. The long-awaited ban on conversion ‘therapy’ - traumatising pseudoscientific practices attempting to change LGBTQ+ people’s identity - has failed to materialise, despite being promised by the government six years ago. Plans to simplify the process of legally changing one’s gender, first announced by a Conservative government, have also been dropped.

In other ways, things are unfortunately going backwards. The LGBTQ+ community, and trans people in particular, have been the target of a relentless culture war. Homophobic and transphobic hate crime is on the rise. We’ve seen protests against drag queens - a longstanding and much-loved part of queer culture (how many of us grew up watching Lily Savage?). We’ve heard government ministers use trans people as a punchline or speak of them as a threat. Now the Tories are trying to roll back the rights that trans people already have: from further restricting access to gender-affirming healthcare for young people (which already takes years to access on the NHS, and has been described by many trans people as life-saving), to telling schools to stop teaching about gender identity and ignore students’ requests to be called by a different name and pronouns.

Trans people are being branded as confused or mentally ill, accused of trying to ‘recruit’ children or described as sexual predators - despite the fact that they’re far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. But in spite of attempts to divide our community, polls show that the vast majority of gay, lesbian and bisexual people firmly support trans rights. That’s because we’ve heard it all before: all of these attack lines have been used to undermine the struggle for LGBTQ+ equality in the past.

Listening to some politicians and media figures, you’d be forgiven for thinking that trans people are a powerful elite controlling nearly every institution - rather than a tiny minority that faces discrimination in all areas of life. When I speak to my transgender and non-binary constituents, they consistently ask for similar things. They want to be able to access the healthcare they need, without having to wait years for their first appointment or spend thousands going private. They want to live as their true selves, feel safe and respected at school or in the workplace, and walk the streets without fear. They’d like to be able to turn on the news without once again hearing their very existence being turned into a toxic ‘debate’, which more often than not completely excludes their own voices.

As I’m writing this, we don’t yet know the outcome of the general election. But whoever is in power, we can be sure that those who want to reverse hard-won progress on LGBTQ+ rights will continue to organise. Notts Pride provides an opportunity to show that our city does not stand for this. Regardless of if you’re LGBTQ+ or not, I encourage everyone to join and take a stand against hate and prejudice. Let’s show up in huge numbers and send a clear message to all our queer and trans friends and neighbours - both those we know of and those who may not be out - that Nottingham loves, respects and celebrates them.

nadiawhittome.org