Anti-Trans Protestors Invade London Pride Parade & Are Allowed to Lead

Anti-trans protestors, mostly made up of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) invaded this weekend's London pride celebrations, disrupting and eventually being allowed to lead the parade by officials.

Pink News reported: "The group, organising under the Twitter hashtag "#GetTheLOut," numbered about 10 people who were presumed not to be cleared to march in the heavily numbers-restricted London Pride...the group led the march all the way to Trafalgar Square, uninterrupted, while handing out extremely transphobic leaflets."

Pink News captured disturbing video of a protestors saying that while she doesn't have a problem with "crossdressers," they take issue with "men saying that they're women and that they're lesbians." These women seems to be part of a contingent of TERF lesbians who reject identifying as queer and take great issue with queer transgender women.

A leaflet handed out by the group claims that "the trans movement with the complicity of 'queer' LGBT politics is coercing lesbians to have sex with men. We firmly condemn this visions form of anti-lesbianism disguised as protest." It also states that "the trans movement is a conservative movement which reinforces sexist sex stereotypes."

Many were quick to condemn not only the protestors, but also London Pride for allowing them to march and spread their hatred. LGBT+ Lib Dems. Chair Jennie Rigg said "I am appalled that transphobic protesters were allowed to lead the march and the crowd asked to cheer them on. This is a betrayal of the thousands marching. The Pride organisers should resign and offer a full apology."

Pink News reported that a spokesperson for London Pride made the following statement. "Every year people come to Pride for reasons that matter to the community. As we found in our recent Pride Matters report, 24% of people say a Pride is protest. 78% said it was a celebration. We are pleased that the parade set off as planned and that hundreds of thousands of Londoners are demonstrating that Pride still matters." They later blamed the "hot weather" and safety concerns as the reason for letting the group of transphobic protestors lead the parade. "We do not condone their approach and message and hope the actions of a very small number people does not overshadow the messages of the 30,000 people marching today."

TERFism runs rampant in the UK thanks to the media's emphasis on gentility and fair debate, giving this militant subculture of transphobic women a voice at the expense of trans people. Handled differently by London Pride, these protestors would have been a blip on the radar, fading into the background like any other hate group protesting a Pride celebration. Yet because of the inaction of the organization, trans people were not only subjected to hatred in a space where they should have been safe, this group was allowed to spread their message to everyone attending the parade.