Pride began as a protest. We must recapture that spirit of resistance.
London, UK – 4th June 2025
By Peter Tatchell
Pride was born out of defiance and protest. The 1969 Stonewall uprising was a revolt against police harrassment. So was the UK’s first Pride in 1972. Both demanded the police off our backs and a wider LGBT+ liberation. Today, we must recapture that spirit of resistance.
In 2025, progress on LGBT+ rights gone into reverse. The promised ban on conversion practices has been kicked into the long grass. There are new restrictions on health care for trans youth. The Supreme Court has defined ‘sex’ in a way that opens the door to trans exclusion & fuels anti-trans hysteria. Some public bodies are quietly scaling back LGBT+ diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. This is not progress. It’s plain prejudice.
While our rights are chipped away at home, the situation abroad is even more dire. Viktor Orbán has now banned Budapest Pride – silencing Hungary’s LGBT+ community & criminalising visibility itself. This is the toxic fruit of authoritarian populism. That’s why we’re holding Solidarity Pride in London on 21 June – standing with queer Hungarians, and defying those who want us invisible.
Across Africa, sweeping anti-LGBT+ laws are being passed at pace – from Uganda’s horrific Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposes the death penalty, to other draconian legislation planned in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. These laws are rooted in colonial-era homophobia, now supercharged by US evangelicals & far-right ideologues. This is a global emergency.
And yet, many big-city Pride parades have become sanitised party spectacles – full of corporate logos and pink-washing, but silent on injustice. For some big business sponsors, Pride is just another PR and marketing opportunity to milk the pink pound and win more LGBT+ consumers.
The police – who once raided our homes, entrapped gay men and ignored anti-LGBT+ violence – want to march in uniform without apologising for past abuse. That’s not inclusion. It’s wilful disrespect.
It’s time to ban from Pride all 24 police forces that have failed to apologise for past homophobic witch-hunts, the Home Office over its ill-treatment of LGBT+ refugees, and weapons manufacturers who arm homophobic and war criminal regimes.
The rise of Trumpism in the US – and Faragism in the UK – are fanning the flames of hatred. From drag bans in Florida to anti-drag protests in Britain. From incitements against migrants, some of whom are queer, to culture wars against black and LGBT+ people. We’re witnessing a new authoritarian wave. Pride must be our firewall.
This June, Pride should mean protest: standing with the victimised, not appeasing the powerful. There can be no queer freedom while LGBTs anywhere are demonised, threatened, defamed and refused equal respect and rights.