Cloudy weather couldn’t dampen the mood as hundreds of thousands of people descended on the capital this afternoon to celebrate London Pride.
Dazzling outfits and colourful floats filled the streets as participants from around 500 organisations gathered at Hyde Park Corner for the annual parade, which set off at midday and made its way through Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
This year’s headliner on the main stage at Trafalgar Square is Chaka Khan, with no fewer than five live music stages hosting entertainment throughout the day.
London is home to the UK’s largest Pride event, with attendance steadily growing in recent years to around 1.5 million people. According to the Pride in London website, last year’s event cost £1.7 million to stage.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “Hundreds of thousands of Londoners and visitors to our capital are uniting in a sea of colour and creativity — as we march in solidarity and celebration with our LGBTQI+ community.”
Khan led the parade in his role as mayor and was the only high-profile politician allowed to take part in this year’s festivities. The Pride committee barred MPs from all parties from attending following an April Supreme Court ruling which found that, under the Equality Act, the term “woman” refers to biological sex.
Several LGBTQ+ artists and public figures criticised the ruling, including singer and actor Olly Alexander, who said trans people are being “villainised more than ever” during the rain-soaked London Pride parade.
Writer Shon Faye and Ellis Howard, lead actor in the BBC drama What It Feels Like For A Girl, also criticised the court’s judgment.
There were shouts for “trans rights now” as the engines roared and rain started to fall on Saturday afternoon.
Former Years And Years singer Alexander said: “Trans people right now, they need our support and love more than ever, they’re being villainised, demonised in the press, by a lot of the media, and trans people they’re just like us… they’re you, they’re me.
“They deserve the same respect, the same rights, the same privileges, same opportunities, and that’s why pride is so important this year.”
The solo artist and Eurovision 2024 contestant added: “There’s been a real backlash against DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies and that’s been going on for years, and I think we’re in a bit of a swing, that’s going against where we were maybe five years ago.
“We’ve had the Supreme Court ruling and I feel like a lot of trans people are scared, rightfully scared, they don’t understand… what their lives are going to look like.”
In April the Supreme Court ruled the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
Before the march began Shon Faye, author of Love in Exile and The Transgender Issue, said “we’ve just seen an unprecedented attack on queer rights and trans rights across the world”.
She told PA: “For the trans community in particular here in the UK, we’ve seen an onslaught of misinformation, attacks in the media, and unfortunately the roll back of human rights in the courts.
“I think (pride) is more important than ever – I think a lot of trans people have been made to feel afraid in public space and pride this year is about taking back public space, and showing what we’re not going to be silenced, and we’re not going to be intimidated.”
Asked what she hoped would change, Faye said: “I feel like it’s not a one year change deal… movements move in generations, I think what we have to do now is accept the reality of the situation we’re in and we have to work together with other groups, within the LGBT community and outside it, to really start forming strong coalitions in order to fight this stuff.
“I think where we’re going in the UK, unfortunately this rightward turn is going to continue for some time. The people together are powerful.”
A YouGov poll released ahead of the event found 67 per cent of people in the UK believe the country is inclusive to LGBTQ+ people, and 60% would not welcome a shift towards more negative attitudes.
Simon Blake, chief executive of Stonewall, which commissioned the survey, said despite the findings “we know many LGBTQ+ people do not feel this in their neighbourhoods and workplaces”.
He added: “In policy terms, the reality is different too. The UK has dropped sharply down the global leaderboard for LGBTQ+ rights.”
