By Jack Moody
Having seen many radical and alternative prides organised throughout the country, and after being somewhat underwhelmed by the council-run Pride, which lacked any political messaging and transgressive energy, West Yorkshire Socialist Alternative took it upon themselves to organise our own.
An organising committee was formed to help plan for the day with local LGBTQ+ youth, meeting regularly to decide exactly what they wanted their Pride to be. On Saturday, 10 August, we to the streets of Huddersfield to lead a Pride march.
Far-right threat
Despite the far-right rioting taking place over previous weeks, the event saw an encouraging turn out, complete with speakers from the LGBTQ+ participants, council workers and trade unionists, framed by a sea of placards created over a few sessions in the local queer friendly Hive Cafe. The message of the day was clear: ‘people over profit’. Our Alternative Pride event has now established a precedent and the follow up discussions in the cafe the week afterwards attended by nine new young interested activists, was filled with ideas and suggestions as to how we can organise for next year.
Not only is the history of Pride that of political struggle with the riot at the Stonewall Inn, but local history is steeped in struggle too. The first ever Pride in Huddersfield in 1981 was a march in solidarity with the local gay club ‘Gemini’ which had been victimised by police raids, and its patrons harassed and made to feel unwelcome in their own town. The organisers of the London Pride chose to prioritise Huddersfield that year and travelled up to lead the march.
It has been particularly galling this year that so many Pride events run by local councils should be so corporatised and commercialised, as the General Election saw trans identities (particularly those of young people) used as political point scoring, sabre rattling and scapegoating. Once more, as is customary in election season, the most vulnerable in society are thrown under the bus to distract from the upper echelons sucking all the profit out of workers’ pockets. The LGBTQ+ community is unfortunately used to having its identities politicised and used as cannon fodder, as part of this ‘culture war’ that they never signed up for.
Attacks on trans youth
This latest wave of political bile and fear mongering has resulted in policies implemented by the late Tory government that would force schoolteachers into the compromising position of outing trans students to their parents should they start using different names or pronouns (a modern-day Section 28) and has recently developed into the further destruction of trans healthcare with more restrictions placed on puberty blockers.
Originally designed to fend off the volatile effects of puberty from those whose bodies were simply not strong or mature enough to handle it, puberty blockers have become a fantastic resource for trans youth who can forego the traumatising impact of growing into a body that they do not want, and potentially save them a lot of effort and money later in life should they choose to medically transition with hormone replacement therapy. Of course, we know that the arguments of the bigots are at their weakest when they resort to the tried and tested ‘think of the children’ routine, spreading misinformation that such drugs will do ‘irreversible damage and change’ despite the fact the blockers subdue the irreversible effects of puberty, and do not affect change in the body, but merely delay it.
So when we as socialists say that ‘trans rights are human rights’ or that ‘trans healthcare is just healthcare’, we aren’t just connecting these struggles ourselves – they are already connected. We are simply pointing out to everyone else what most LGBTQ+ people already know – that these fights are one and the same, that the ‘culture war’ tactics of the ruling class need to be eviscerated and the fight back needs to be taken up by all.
