Protest and party - Trans Pride Southampton made a triumphant return to the city - In-Common

On the 29th June, Trans Pride Southampton returned to the city.

This started with a march from Oxford Street at Southampton’s queer venue, The London Hotel, marched through the city centre, and finishing at Edmund Kell Unitarian Church. The march was a loud protest for trans rights and fighting in defiance against a status quo which would like to completely exclude trans people of all ages from schools, work, and public life. As the protest tore through the city, we received much applause from pedestrians and passers by. There were negative moments too but the spirit of all the trans people that attended rose above the hecklers. A large portion of the marchers were from the National Education Union who bravely marched with us in solidarity and support of transgender youths and the teaching and inclusion of trans people in schools.

At Edmund Kell Unitarian Church, the Trans Pride event featured many different stalls, including queer traders and a local printing company. There were also speeches from a member of the National Education Union and a local trans person who lives in the city. In a first for our local Trans Pride events, live music was performed by three local queer artists which people loved. Moving Voices, a monthly local open mic poetry session, also took place at Trans Pride Southampton, with a large member of the audience and performers being queer themselves.

As an organiser of Trans Pride Southampton, I am very happy with how this year’s event has turned out. As a very small organisation, the success of our events comes directly from the local trans community joining us to take full advantage of being together in both a political and social way. It was the first time we have ever had stalls and live music in an event of ours and we believe this helped to fuel the positive atmosphere our event had and allowed the local trans community to take more out of this yearly event.

This year’s event concluded with a disco to celebrate transgender people.

Trans Pride Southampton CIC intends to be there for the trans community all year around for the city. The next local event is slated for the 17th August with our Trans Sports Day. A casual community day on the Southampton Outdoor Sports Centre to have fun in our city’s green space, meet new friends, and help us to stay active. More events are planned but not yet dated including socials like the LGBTQIA+ Beach Meet returning this season.

To help improve the quality of events, a feedback form is open to responses from Trans Pride Southampton last week. This can be filled in here.

Trans Pride Southampton is looking for volunteers to help with a number of roles and tasks to improve the work we do through the year, to reach out and get involved, go to transpridesouthampton.org/contact.

Photos provided were taken by Hannah Phillips who assisted with photography and videography through the day, you can see more about the event on her latest video.

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