LGBTQ+ Londoners share tributes on what Pride means to them

Way back in the early 1970s, I was a member of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front (GLF). It was Britain’s first freedom movement of openly LGBT+ people. In those days, nearly everyone was closeted and many felt ashamed.

Indeed, homosexuality was condemned as shameful by every social institution: government, police, media, church and the medical profession.

The opposite of shame is pride. So, on 1 July 1972, in London, GLF held the UK’s first-ever “Gay Pride” march. Our aim was to show that we were proud, not ashamed. Only 700 people turned up. Most of my friends were too scared to march. They feared that if they were seen at Pride they might be sacked from their job or evicted. That was lawful in those days. Many worried that we’d be attacked by queer-bashers or arrested. That didn’t happen, but we were swamped by a sometimes aggressive police presence. They treated us like criminals. It was scary.

But we were determined to have fun and make our point. Our carnival-style parade went from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. There were lots of extravagant costumes and banners poking fun at homophobes like Mary Whitehouse.

Back then, Pride was very political. In 1972 homosexuality was still classified as an illness, lesbian mothers had their kids taken off them by the courts, and the police were at war with the LGBT+ community — with thousands of gay and bisexual men arrested for consensual behaviour, including for having sex before the age of 21, the discriminatory age of consent for gay men at the time. Many of us saw the Pride parade as the LGBT+ equivalent of the black civil rights marches in America. Our slogan was “Gay Is Good”.

We got mixed reactions from the public. Some were hostile. Many were curious or bewildered. Most had never knowingly seen a gay person, let alone hundreds of queers demanding freedom. But some were supportive, which encouraged us.

Unlike nowadays, there was no commercial sponsorship. No business wanted to be associated with queers. London councils spurned the event. MPs refused to attend.

There were no floats or marching bands, and no entertainment after the march. Instead, we held a DIY party in Hyde Park. We played camped-up versions of party games like spin the bottle and drop the hanky. I won a game and my prize was a kiss with a handsome French activist who had come over to London for our march.

Kissing him was more than good fun. In those days, same-sex kissing in public could get you arrested. Our games were a gesture of defiance. But the police didn’t make arrests — I guess there were just too many uppity queers for them to handle.

Five decades on, London Pride is now a rally attended by more than a million revellers. Since 1999, we’ve won many LGBT+ law reforms, such as equalising the age of consent to 16, repealing Section 28 and legalising same-sex marriage.

But nearly half of all LGBT+ pupils are bullied at school, there are thousands of homophobic hate crimes every year and about 12 per cent of the public still believe that homosexuality is “always or mostly wrong”. Trans people are demonised and subject to new social exclusions following the Supreme Court ruling.

This is why the campaign for our rights must continue. Let’s have a fun Pride but also send out a message: the battle for acceptance and rights ain’t over yet.

Peter Tatchell is the director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation; petertatchellfoundation.org

I was up a ladder, hanging up rainbow bunting so that it stretched from the school gates to the branch of an apple tree in the playground, when the emotion hit me. My daughter’s state primary in south-east London celebrates Pride every July. There’s a big Pride playtime with music and dancing. In the classroom there are lessons about diversity; sometimes an LGBT speaker will share their experiences and I’ll read the picture book I wrote, My Magic Family (published by Puffin) to the Reception and Year One children. We’ll talk about the fact that the girl in my story, right, has two mums and goes on a fantastical adventure to discover all the different kinds of families her friends are part of, too.

I love answering the four and five-year-old’s questions. I’ve been asked if I live in a shoe, why dragons breathe fire and if it’s possible to hate Frozen if you love princesses. But I’ve never once, in the four years I’ve been doing this, had my queer family questioned or challenged — the kids just get it.

I’ve heard from other LGBT families who say that their children’s schools either don’t acknowledge Pride Month at all or do so in a way that involves rainbows and kindness but avoids ever having to mention the words “gay” or “lesbian” — as if the terms are somehow inappropriate.

But what about the kids with gay parents or other family members? What about the Year Six children who are starting to wonder if they might be queer or trans themselves? How damaging it is to be told, even subtly, that this is not OK. To normalise talking about the LGBT community, and all the ways we can be ourselves and love who we want to love, is powerful and affirmative. It could make the difference between a child growing up feeling shame about themselves or having a deep sense of pride.

I was a child during the era of Section 28, when it was illegal to talk about homosexuality in schools, so I’m overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that schools like my daughter’s celebrate LGBT Pride. Watching the kids run out into the playground to a soundtrack of gay anthems, waving Progress flags and queuing up for glitter facepaint fills my heart with joy every year.

My favourite London Pride memory? It’s a surreal one. Years ago I was the face of Levi’s for its Pride campaign. I arrived to the float early in the morning to join the procession. As soon as the parade got moving, whistles, cheers and music created a cacophony of queer joy. We moved past families with small children, allies and parents holding placards celebrating their LGBTQ+ kids. Seeing an older gay couple holding hands and watching the march, I imagined all they have endured: surviving the Aids epidemic, repressive laws under the Conservatives and living in such a hostile world. I cried… with joy for all we’ve achieved, but with sadness for all they had to fight against.

Queer people so often move through the world in a state of high alert, constantly checking ourselves. Even as a very privileged, white, cisgender, gay man, I constantly ask myself: am I being too visible? Is it safe to hold my partner’s hand? Dare I steal a kiss and risk attack? But at Pride, en masse, we are offered a level of temporary security.

For just a day, we can be impulsive, freeing ourselves from the checks that society puts on us. We can be unapologetic, reject shame and be truly proud.

On that sunny day in London, I clambered (gracefully, of course) onto the top of the float. I plugged my USB sticks into the decks and dropped Madonna’s song Vogue just as we turned onto Oxford Street. The crowd erupted. As one, connected through music, through shared history and, most importantly, through love… we danced.

São Paulo. Madrid. Brighton. Manchester. The Pride that changed my life wasn’t at any of these grand or well-known locations. It happened in 2023, in Southend-on-Sea.

I was booked to perform at Adventure Island amusement park in Southend as part of the area’s Pride celebrations, right. It was the third year in a row that I had brought a family-friendly show to the park. There was a warm atmosphere, with lots of families and teens.

Sadly, someone who hadn’t attended the event clipped a few seconds of video, Right-wing outrage accounts (like Libs of TikTok) amplified it, and the Daily Mail did a hit piece on me, saying parents were “horrified”. Suddenly I was receiving hundreds of comments describing me as a paedophile, and MP Lee Anderson was on GB News calling me an “it”.

Adventure Island issued a statement claiming it had no idea about the nature of my performance and cancelled all future Pride events at the park. It said “Pride isn’t for us”, and that its attempt at inclusivity had “backfired”. Of course, I had done the same act there for three years with no issue, so the problem wasn’t me or my performance, it was the manufactured outrage. It was a stark reminder of the nature of pinkwashing. Companies are very happy to use queer people when convenient, either to sell things or to polish their image. But we can’t count on them when the chips are down.

This is true of governments and public bodies as well, as we’ve seen Reform-led councils around the country axe Pride funding this year.

The thing is, Pride was never meant to be free from controversy. It was born out of protest, designed to disrupt the status quo. So, the following year I returned to Southend-on-Sea to volunteer my services for the grassroots local Pride. While the corporate version of Pride folded under pressure, the real one didn’t. The event was joyful and couldn’t be cancelled on a panicked CEO’s whim.

As the anti-trans panic intensifies, more and more companies and councils will pull back their support, so we need to remember the lesson I learned from Southend. If we are united, no one can stop us. See you on the streets!

Pride feels as though, for just a few precious hours, we have given each other permission to exist fully. Today, when I stand at UK Black Pride and look out at tens of thousands of people, I don’t see a crowd. I see generations. I see elders who fought battles many of us will never fully understand. I see young people discovering that they are not alone.

I see families, chosen and biological, celebrating together. I see joy sitting alongside protest, because our liberation has always demanded both.

People sometimes ask whether Pride is still needed. My answer is always the same: as long as there is a young queer person wondering if there is a place for them, Pride matters; as long as Black, trans, disabled, migrant and other marginalised LGBTQIA+ communities are still fighting to be seen, Pride matters; and as long as our rights can be debated, rolled back or denied, Pride remains both a celebration and a call to action.

I remember my first Pride parade. I was 24, newly out and still learning how to feel comfortable in my own skin. My friends and I decided it would be fun to get the coach to Brighton and have a few drinks on the way.

A few drinks quickly turned into far too many, and we arrived absolutely smashed. But what I remember most has nothing to do with that.

I just recall feeling an overwhelming sense of safety. I saw people of every age living unapologetically, celebrating who they were. I saw strangers looking out for one another, caring for each other like family. It was something I wasn’t used to, but I instantly loved it. I’ll never forget this one Pride in Soho where artist Liz Johnson Artur steered us through this crowd of tall muscle gays, like she knew exactly where to go. She is only about 5ft 2in, but she had this total authority in the middle of all that chaos.

My friend was newly transitioning at the time, and a woman came over with her child. She wanted her child to meet my friend, and to say “Happy Pride” and give her a hug — to really see her and make it clear she was supported.

It really got to me. Knowing how much it meant to my friend, who was going through this new journey, was so beautiful and poetic.

For me Pride is safety. Pride is home. Pride is kindness. Pride is about being seen and seeing others.