Pride London at 50:

London Pride turned 50 last year. London Pride, like all Pride events, has gone through many changes in its existence. The first official UK Gay Pride Rally took place on the 1st of July 1972, the nearest Saturday to the 1969 Stonewall Riots. And with momentous highs such as the first EuroPride in 1992 with over 100,000 attendees, or the Marriage Act of 2013 that introduced Same-Sex Marriage in England and Wales, to lows such as the Pride Trust insolvency in 1998, or anti-trans organisations parading in 2018, it is easy to say that Pride has seen its fair share of different experiences over its tenure.

I visited London Pride on the 2nd of July to understand what half a century of Pride meant to the LGBT community, to find out Pride’s impact across the world, and to see what the future of Pride looks like in the UK.

I arrived about an hour before the parade was due to start, and the streets of London were already packed, very packed. This of course was the first London Pride since 2019, as both 2020 and 2021 were cancelled because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Many people who had missed the previous two prides were hopeful that 2022 could go ahead, and when they were given the greenlight, it felt as if they wanted three years of celebration all in one. I could feel the buzz and excitement of hundreds of thousands of people as the first parades were lining up to start, being led by dozens of men and women on motorcycles. The noise was momentous, with clackers and cheering rising high above the dance music coming from a DJ playing atop a floral van, embossed with the number 50 in golden balloons.

Everywhere you looked were explosions of colour, loud smells were met with equally loud voices and even louder outfits, causing almost a sensory overload wherever you stood. Rainbow suits adorning characters from all walks of life, waving rainbow flags with rainbow makeup and rainbow hair dye. People were gearing up getting ready to start marching and it was absolutely jam packed. The only way to tell where one parade started and another ended was by who was holding which sign. Different parades where there because whilst everyone here was united under the same goal, everyone was going about their support in slightly different ways. What surprised me was just how diverse the groups taking part in pride were. From parades such as ‘Youth Stop Aids.’ And ‘We are Stonewall’, all the way to ‘UK Queer Arabs’ and ‘Red Hot’, (celebrating ginger queerness), I didn’t know that there was such a variety of groups. Orchestral music was being played by the London Gay Symphonic Winds, which was quickly being drowned out by the revving of motorcycle engines. This accompanied the waving of flags protesting the war in Ukraine, as well as floats from different companies. As the parade started, I got to speak with ‘Youth Stop AIDS’, a charity raising money for ‘The Global Fund’ as the UK Government had recently cut finding to this fund. They told me that: “Stop AIDS is a UK based HIV health and human rights network with over 35 years’ experience uniting UK voices on the global re- sponse to HIV and AIDS… At least 69 countries criminalise LGBTQI+ people. This compromises efforts to test, treat and prevent HIV. The risk of acquiring HIV globally is 25 times higher amongst men who have sex with men; 34 times higher for transgender women. The Global Fund has saved more than 44 million lives since its inception in 2022, including 64% fewer deaths from AIDS related illnesses and 54% fewer HIV transmissions. This September, The Global Find needs to raise at least $18 billion… [which] will save 20 million lives, cut the death rate from HIV, TB and malaria by 64% & strengthen health systems to build a healthier, more equitable world.”.

These were numbers that shocked me when I heard them. I knew that HIV and AIDS were big issues that plagued the LGBT community but I had no idea how vast the scope was. It put into perspective for me that this is a huge issue that is very rarely mentioned. I am proud to say that the UK is a very giving nation and a lot of support goes to plenty of charities, but from my experience at Pride, it seems as if one of the biggest problems facing the LGBT community was almost forgotten about. As the day carried on have seen two or three dozen marches, all supporting different HIV related charities, and this really hammered home just how important this issue is, and how little must be being done for there to be this much attention being brogh to it.

Speaking to more people, I came across a group of men that were all at the original London Pride. It was fantastic for these people to see a parade they built grow into something so large, and for the society they helped change become so inviting and free. These men opened up a lot to me, and even told me some things I wouldn’t expect. They all had very similar backstories, from how they grew up in a time of abuse and bullying, and how much it meant to them for samesex marriage to no longer be illegal. One of the gentlemen, Eric, told me that “this country has made leaps and bounds” with regards to LGBT rights, and Pride has allowed people “to be true to themselves and get on with life”. The main points I took from speaking to them was how people tend to take freedom for granted, people who have had to fight for basic rights see the world in a very different way, and it was incredibly eye opening to speak to people who have had such different experiences than myself. This ‘reduction of shame’ and ‘visibility’ that Pride gives them was immensely valuable to them, and people should be able to celebrate themselves and have fun, without having to hide who they are.

One man I spoke to, Andonis, told me about what still had to be done for the community. “Life is too short to hate, so live and let live” he told me as he was revving up his motorcycle. We spoke about the problems and phobias people against the LGBT community have, and how visibility needs to be increased for children so that they can understand that being part of the LGBT community is a normal way to live. They aren’t outsiders, they are just people. He told me about how religions and families are some of the biggest problems that LGBT people face, and it is a global fight, not a localised one. Andonis was right that we still don’t have equality, and you cannot be what you cannot see, so normalising being LGBT goes a long way to people being able to accept who they are. There is a lot of fighting still to be done, and the community won’t stop until it is legal to be an LGBT person everywhere in the world.

I then made my way to the front to take some more photos and speak to some more people, and this is where I came across some resistance to Pride. I of course knew that the more fundamentalist believers in God were opposed to the LGBT community, but I was still saddened to see that they had brought signs and speakers to preach during a time for celebration, not protest. Some of the signs I saw were Bible quotes, and others were your basic ‘this is a sin’ signs. What I did notice was that the only protesters were people from the older generation, and this made me think question whether or not these people were stronger in their convictions because it was tradition to them. It’s much harder for someone to challenge beliefs that are core to them, especially as they get older. These views are views that these people from older generations grew up with, before the Stonewall riots, before the legalisation of homosexuality. A time that was more religious and more Conservative. I almost felt sorry for these protesters as they seemed more frightened than angry, scared that their way of life was being changed and the values that they grew up with questioned. I don’t agree with what they say by any means, but I do believe that they had a right to protest, even if what they were saying was wrong. I respected the Pride attendees next to them for taking no notice of them, being the bigger person and not resorting to violence. And I did also gain some enjoyment when their Tannoy system was completely drowned out by a drag queen singing Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ on the back of a float. I spoke to these people briefly and they told me that the rising LGBTQ community is a sign of the rapidly declining morality of society. They tried to convince me that society should be based on Christian ideals and how being in the LGBT community is a sin; but I didn’t feel like it was time for an argument or debate, people were here to celebrate and I had much better things to do so I quickly moved on.

As the parade got to around Trafalgar Square, I was given the incredibly valuable opportunity to speak to Christopher Joell-Deschields, the Executive Director of London Pride. He gave me a quick one-onone interview in which we talked about the importance of Pride. He told me that “in this day and age, Pride is so important because it really creates that level of visibility for us as an LGBT community, but it’s the unity that brings the community together to celebrate, protest, and really have a good time. It also creates a platform for those LGBT persons around the globe who are not able to celebrate around the world in the free way that we are able to today.”

Asking him what the next 50 years of Pride will look like, he told me that: “hopefully that fight will be over, but as we stand today 50 years on and looking forward to the next 50 years, we know there is still a lot of fighting to do, fighting for our Trans siblings and looking to dismantle the criminality that’s put behind the LGBT persons around the globe. We have to continue a platform to create this space so those issues that we have can go away.”

In such a short conversation, Mr Joell-Deschields brought up a lot of points I had been thinking about on my train journey to Pride. Whilst the Trans community was not a new phenomenon by any means, they have only recently been receiving a lot of the limelight with regards to LGBT struggles, why was this? And we are so lucky in England to live in a community, that whilst is not totally equitable as of yet, was making great strides in that direction; but what about LGBT communities in much more Conservative countries? It made me ponder what could be done not just for LGBT awareness and quality of life in the UK, but in countries were homosexuality isn’t just criminalised, but punishable by death? Is it fair to impose our moral values on other countries that have different histories and views as us? Should we step in to protect views that other people do not hold? Are there objective values that should be imposed such as acceptance of other gender identities? It reminded me of the Christian protestors I saw earlier, and how we hold diametrically opposing views, and both believe what we say is objectively correct. If we truly believe in the rights of LGBT people, then do we not have a moral obligation to fight for that right for every human being, not just the ones living in the West?

By sheer coincidence, the political floats started showing up. Spearheading the Labour float was Kier Starmer, followed closely by Sadiq Khan and a Mayor of London float, then finally an SNP float. Whilst I was pleased that influential people were taking part in Pride, I was in two minds about this. Since the first gay pride parade in London 50 years ago, there has been a vast change regarding society’s approach to the LGBT community, and this has been almost entirely for the best. Because of the plight of the LGBT community becoming mainstream, support has grown exponentially and many people have been given the confidence to accept their true sexualities, many more people therefore have been able to express their true selves to their families and friends without a problem, leading to a safer, more inclusive society as a whole.

Pride parades naturally attract a lot of media attention, this in turn brings awareness of the cause to millions, helping to continue societal change surrounding attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community. But, with the media attention, comes political attention too. Politicians all want to be seen doing their bit to help the LGBT community, and if I am perfectly honest it felt incredibly surface level. It felt as it they wanted to be seen to be doing their part, as opposed to actually doing it. Seeing Sadiq Khan, as formally dressed as ever, walking Infront of a sign with the words ‘Mayor of London’ on it felt disingenuous. It could be that I was being cynical but was it necessary to add the ‘Mayor of London’ onto his Pride flag? I just felt that these MPs were there to show face and to simply garner more votes, as opposed to truly fighting for the community. I couldn’t think of something major off of the top of my head that Kier or Sadiq had done for the community, and I was filled with this insincerity. They were almost taking the spotlight away from LGBT activists who were fighting for rights to be upheld all year round, as opposed to only for a month.

I was also given this peculiar feeling when I saw the parade standing for Ukraine. A very hot topic at the moment, and a great way to gain awareness for the genocide that is happening to the Ukrainian people by the illegal war Russia had started. There was something in my mind however that told me that this almost wasn’t the place for this protest. I absolutely feel for the citizens of Ukraine, and I have been directly affected by the war, with family living in Mariupol, but I still felt as if, to some extent, the limelight was being taken from the main causes of

London Pride, the LGBT community.

The whole goal of Pride is to celebrate the rights and of each sexual orientation, and despite the political gain being taken from pride by politicians, I still felt as if Pride’s primary purpose was to display acceptance of the LGBT community. But some of the people making the most noise about acceptance were companies. Whilst living under Capitalism means that commercialisation is inevitably a natural by-product of any popular event, it still left a bitter taste in my mouth to see companies rainbow-washing themselves for a parade. Rainbow-washing is the process of companies changing their logos or selling rainbow covered products. Whilst not wrong in and of itself, I couldn’t help but feel that these companies weren’t really giving to the community. Of course, the extra visibility that Pride gets is great, but were these companies ‘queering up’ themselves for the sake of the community, or for the sake of profits? During Pride month, it isn’t difficult to spot phone apps sporting rainbow logos, companies releasing LGBT adverts, or selling products that have rainbows on them. Businesses then profit from increasing the prices of these new products during Pride month, and I doubt that much of the increase in sales goes to LGBT charities or institutions. Why don’t companies keep their rainbow logo the whole year round? Don’t they want to show support all the time? They show support for once a month to increase profits, to keep relevancy.

I felt as though these major companies were capitalising on Pride for profits, as opposed to truly caring about people. They were commodifying and commercialising Pride and it felt wrong to me. This, much like the politicisation of Pride, takes away from the actual message of Pride. It removed the human notion of Pride and felt very forced. The second Pride month is over these companies go back to pretending that the LGBT community doesn’t exist for 11 months, then as soon as it is July, millions are spent on adverts and suddenly there are rainbows everywhere. Pride is obviously a good movement with a strong and important history for a lot of people, but the parade seems to deviate from honouring that history more and more every year. It seems to be more a way for companies to advertise themselves and their ‘inclusiveness’ without necessarily having to change any policies to be more inclusive. Just look at the sponsors of Pride in 2022, Tesco, Coca Cola, BT, Google, Adobe, PlayStation, Just Eat Takeaway, United Airlines, Hard Rock Café, Lego, Pure Gym, and there are more.

There was a dichotomy for me when the parade finished. I felt part of something moral and valuable, but I didn’t like the direction Pride was turning. I feel it is wrong to politicise and commercialise being part of the LGBT community. It is not solely Prides fault, they need sponsors and they need money, but commercialising queerness is commercialising humans. There was something off about it, something fake.

I left London Pride a different man than when I arrived. I almost couldn’t see the point before I spent a day there. I had been to pride events before but I wasn’t as invested as I was this time. I think I used to view pride in the wrong way and I could not see the difference between equality and equity. How was it fair that people who simply have a different gender or sexual orientation to me got an entire month named after them, or festivals or marches? Aren’t we all human? Aren’t we all equal?

I was surprised by this truckload of expressionism that I don’t think I have experienced before in my dayto-day life. There was an aura about this march that felt overwhelming, like the average marcher was using one day a year to express as much about themselves as possible, then returning to normality again. I felt as though this day was so important to so many people because they could truly be free, and truly express their individualism, whilst in the comfort of those around them who actually understand who they are. I could see the joy on the faces of all those who were marching because I could feel a weight being removed from the shoulders of everyone there. I saw people smile in ways I wasn’t used to seeing. These were smiles of not just celebration but of almost redemption. Smiles in the faces of people who had been put down for so long and now have the ability to demonstrate to others exactly who they are. This is not a feeling I have had to feel before, and it was interesting to see it on so many people because it made me realise that acceptance still had a long way to go.

We are, indeed, all equal. But before equality can be reached, equity must be reached. It is not fair to just treat everyone the same way if people have had different life experiences and have therefore been given opportunities and have to live life differently. Pride is not about showing off or creating inequality between those that are not in the LGBT community and those that are, it is making up for years of inequity and balancing that out. This is why I saw such different smiles at Pride than I would have on a normal day walking down the street, these were smiles that were demonstrating to me that people with different experiences to me feel more safe and comfortable than they regularly do, and I’m not sure how I felt about that. Of course, I was glad, I got to see people celebrating who they are as people, something incredibly valuable, but there was also a discomfort for me because I knew the reason that people at Pride were celebrating so hard is because in their day to day lives, they couldn’t outwardly express themselves fully.

This is what Pride is, people going through human experiences; I know this because I am a human, I have gone through human experiences as well. Different experiences sure, but experiences, nonetheless. What is means to be human is not something in my opinion to be politicised, to be commercialised. It is not something to be understood, it is not something to be boxed. It is something to experience. People celebrating Pride are people going through an experience, an experience greater than what can be bought or sold. They are people celebrating who they are as people. They are people celebrating something about themselves that has helped define who they are, has shaped experiences they hold and has shaped both how they view the world, and how the world views them.

This is something I had no notion of as a heterosexual man. I have never had to celebrate who I am as a person because I have never come up against resistance for being me. This begs the question of can I even speak about Pride as a straight man, and what is my opinion worth? I have different lived experiences, and I haven’t had this struggle to demonstrate to others who I am, but I still understand the worth of a human experience.

I think the issue that some people have with pride is that they view it as tribal. Viewing people as other and not understanding lived experiences. A celebration of who someone is as a person shouldn’t be seen as tribal, they are viewing it wrong. Why it can’t be seen as fellow human beings celebrating differences I don’t understand. Difference doesn’t necessitate hierarchy, you can be different and equal at the same time, you just need empathy for those that you don’t understand, and the faith that they are going through this experience.

Being empathetic of the LGBT struggle isn’t lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, it is being human. You may not understand what these people have gone through exactly but you need to trust that this is something that matters to them. And as a human, it should matter to you too.