And again, similar on Edinburgh on the same day as Lancaster Pride.
Contrary to some accounts I have seen, we were not booed at the rally. There was an act of physical aggression when an angry young person grabbed a placard I was holding and tried to rip it up, shouting “TERF” in my face, but this was quickly handled by stewards and police liaison and I’ve honestly faced down worse violence from violent men than a ripped placard.
Kind of goes with the female terroritory, sad to say.
But what did chill me and did stir some actual fear for how I and the others might fare on Pride was the speeches given by MSPs from the top of the open top bus. In particular the words of Patrick Harvie, Green MSP, where he felt the need to apologise for the democratic workings of Parliament, and the decision taken this week to put the brakes on GRA reform until the full due consideration and further deliberation by a broad range of groups affected by these reforms and, importantly, the conflation of sex and gender that has infested our policy making.
He said, “I am sorry that this parliament very recently was used as a platform for transphobic hatred and bigotry”.
This whipped the crowd up onto a bit of a frenzy, since they had already been primed by the previous speeches that whilst the “theme” of this year’s Pride is “Be Yourself”, the main focus (as it’s been for several years) isn’t about the right to love and express that love without prejudice, it is about “trans rights” front and centre.
I can’t remember the last time Lesbians were ever front and centre in anything LGBTQI+++ related – can you?
So, the need for Lesbians taking space IN PRIDE is pressing. For we are being erased.
I felt Patrick Harvie’s speech inflamed an already dangerous situation for Lesbians on Pride. It did make me fearful, since immediately after, some people started shouting about getting the ‘TERFs’ out – it was obvious they meant us. We had already been blocked in by some very tall people wearing ‘Trans’ and ‘Non-Binary’ flags draped over their shoulders – quite literally and intentionally making us and our ‘Lesbian Visibility’ banners invisible.
Thanks to the spittle infused rhetoric espoused by Patrick Harvie MSP, our situation went from hostile to dangerous. I thought politicians had some standards in public life to stick to. Certainly, I don’t expect them to inflame the flames and put people (Lesbians) in danger of mob attack.
I was dismayed to find out later that my sisters who joined the march were harassed by marchers behind them, had bells rung and whistles painfully blown in their ears and even had a missile thrown at them in the shape of a juice bottle, that fortunately missed them but unfortunately hit a tourist photographing the parade.
They left the march of their own volition; unwilling to make their selves a target for hate any longer and fearing that the bells and whistles might turn into blows or worse.
It was obvious this would happen. The marchers had been well and truly whipped up into a ‘righteous’ anger by our MSPs and others who spoke from that open-top bus at the pre march rally.
The rally where Lesbians were intentionally blocked-in and made invisible.
Where women were told they were bigots for standing up for Female Rights and expecting our politicians to do the same;
Where it was made crystal clear to us that LESBIANS ARE NOT ONLY NO LONGER WELCOME BUT ARE NO LONGER SAFE AT PRIDE.
More here: womansplaceuk.org/2019/06/23/lesbians-at-edinburgh-pride-a-personal-account/