2,500 marchers demand Boris Johnson stops stalling on LGBTI+ rights
London, UK – 25 July 2021
2,500 LGBTI+ campaigners marched through London in the UK’s historic first-ever Reclaim Pride march on Saturday 24 July – reclaiming Pride for the LGBTI+ community and our human rights.
The community-led Pride march got back to the roots of Pride; being both a celebration and a protest for LGBTI+ rights, with five key LGBTI+ demands, including a ban on LGBTI+ conversion therapy and reform of the Gender Recognition Act.
March coordinator, Peter Tatchell, said: “Unlike the official Pride in London, we did not charge people to participate, had no corporate sponsors or branding, and put LGBTI+ human rights centre stage.”
The march was organised in three weeks, with no budget or funding. The turn out was great and would have been much bigger had it not been for the Covid surge and the weather forecast predicting thunderstorms.
Reclaim Pride was supported by UK Black Pride, Diva magazine, Lesbian Visibility Week, London Trans Pride, the Peter Tatchell Foundation and Stand Up To LGBTQ+ Hate Crime and many other LGBTI+ organisations and allies.
Linda Riley of DIVA and Lesbian Visibility Week said: “This proves you don’t need corporate sponsors to put on a brilliant Pride event.”
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah of UK Black Pride said: “We are here to remind one and all that until racism, transphobia and homophobia are eradicated, there will be no liberation for any of us.”
The march route mostly followed that of the UK’s first Pride in 1972 and, like 1972, it ended in Hyde Park with an informal mass picnic.
Mr Tatchell concluded: “The Reclaim Pride march mirrored the community-focus and liberation themes of the UK’s first Pride march in 1972, which I and 40 others helped organise. It was my 50th London Pride parade. We’ve set a precedent for a successful alternative to the way Pride in London’s has become commercialised and depoliticised.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
The five key demands of Reclaim Pride were:
Ban LGBTI+ conversion therapy
Reform the Gender Recognition Act to secure trans rights
Safe haven for LGBTI+ refugees feeling persecution
Decriminalisation of LGBTI+ people worldwide
Solidarity with Black Lives Matter