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England: Stewards and police at the LGBT Pride march in London yesterday seemed unclear on the nature of the event. As Roz Kaveney reports:
Official stewards who were running the toilets at Trafalgar Square announced that I, and any other transgender or transsexual woman, had to use the disabled toilets and was not allowed to use the regular women's toilets. I pointed out to the stewards that I transitioned and had surgery before they were born; I was more polite than a polite thing. No dice.
I went and fetched a posse of transwomen and transmen and we made a collective fuss. Their response - and remember these were official stewards AT PRIDE - was to radio in 'we're being attacked by a mob of trannies! send backup'. They were joined by a policeman, who was a LGBT liaison officer, who claimed that we had to be able to show our Gender Recognition Certificates if we wanted to use the women's loos and got quite upset when I explained to him that I had been involved in drafting the Act and that it did not take away rights that existed before it. At one point he threatened to arrest us for demonstrating on private property - those loos belong to Westminster Council, so you are not allowed to make a fuss there.
Needless to say, a Facebook group—Stop Transphobia at Pride—has already been created.
As one commenter on LiveJournal put it:
WTF! LGBT Pride is worse than the other kind—Silence Exile and Crumpets, 6th July 2008. See also Transphobia at Pride.
Posted in
Pooves and closet cases
at 13:22. Last modified on July 06 2008 at 13:46.
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Comments
1: Posted by: Bimboina | July 7, 2008 5:51 PM
What an absolute outrage! The utter effrontery of demanding ID for the privilege of using the public toilets! And what, if not for the express purpose of excluding transwomen from the Ladies Room, were the 'stewards' posted there for - to point out the doorknobs? No, this had to be a deliberate and intentional official Pride Committee effort to exclude transwomen, clearly demonstrating their disdain for them. I've lost all interest in their stupid event, and suggest the complete withdrawal of trans participation and that it be turned back to GLB, minus the T. Let lesbian transwomen participate as lesbians, if they like. But NEVER, EVER tolerate such insults, especially from any stupid toilet monitor or Public Official whatsoever.
2: Posted by: Feòrag | July 7, 2008 6:21 PM
Bimboina: the latest is that the stewards were employed by Westminster City Council and the Pride organisers plan to make a formal complaint about them.
3: Posted by: Debs | October 1, 2008 2:32 AM
Bimboina were you there on the day??
If not then you are in the majority of people with a misguided opinion on this unfortunate incident.
No GRC was ever requested from anybody. Questions were rightly asked as to legal status of the complainant in order to advise her on the correct path of of legal action available.
Please by all means express your opinion but also be cautious as to the authenticity of what you may read.
Kindest Regards
D
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