The international day against homophobia (and transphobia) event held in Sheffield had advertised itself as “Sheffield in the Pink: International day against homophobia and transphobia”. By advertised, I mean, I heard about it from a friend who happened to pick up a Sheffield events magazine. She let me borrow the magazine to be able to promote it a little myself, and so I did.
I had to do a little digging online though to get all the details I needed, the magazine had the date of the event listed as “Monday 17th may 2009”. I did a little double-take at that, it's a bit of a not so minor screw up. The IDAHO webpage didn't have links to any of the events bearing it's name, so in the end it was the council's events website which gave me the accurate times, although not really much more information about the event.
As a transwoman attending the event, I felt slightly out of place. Probably justified by the poor mix of adding transsexual and transgender people to the 'sexuality pile' of LGB, but really, it was because I wanted to hang back where I could see what was going on. I got there a little ahead of time, and was losing my positive impression of how I imagined the event to be. The main banner on the tiny stage was provided by the city council and read “Sheffield City Council Supports Day Against Homophobia” Cool!
I had been warned by a friend that transgender and transsexual issues often got dropped from events like this, and I could see why. Transphobia kept being dropped where homophobia was mentioned by the compère, and the guest speakers, save one, were all from homosexual groups, MP's and politicians, as well as a police officer and a very dramatic clergyman.
The event drew a small crowd, with lots of young people within.
Starting off as the first guest speaker, was Paul Scriven, a Lib Dem and the Council Leader, as well as an openly gay man. His message was one of equality, very positive, albeit rushed, because he had to go for a Lib Dem AGM just around the corner.
Carol Robson, a spokesperson for the transgender community (a mythical creature I've yet to find and interact with) told us of how she was working with south yorkshire police, and left on a very strong note, wishing not for tolerance or to be tolerated, but to be understood and accepted.
Superintendent Rachel Barber of the police delivered a short message, “[We] will deal with homophobia robustly.” Nice! Although transphobia wasn't mentioned. Again.
There was a short presentation from a group “Global” a youth movement focussed on “Gay, lesbian, bi and others.”
There was a Green Party politician, who mentioned human rights and had a global focus. I resonated with the message of “not an illness” but retrospectively lost that when I realised the focus was on homosexuality, and not transsexuality.
Claire Donnelly, a part of Sheffield's LGBT Network. Whose focus seemed to be in creating support for people in council jobs, from a conversation I had with her afterwards.
Amnesty international, Graham Jones, brought forward a petitioning letter to save a gay couple.
Peter Bradley, The Anglican Dean of the Diocese of Sheffield gave a very dramatic speech, expressing shame at the homophobia and transphobia of the church, and was very apologetic, “against all oppression”. He ended his bit with a strong message of “God loves you”.
After that came a Labour MP, Paul Blomfield. He listed the successes of the labour party in terms of equality, letting the crowd cheer after each one. Amusingly, his phone went off, not once, but twice. His message though was very nice: “[to] Stand up together for equality.”
Then came the minute's noise. People inside the town hall building came to windows to wave at the crowd, and then there was a choir who sang a song for us. Unfortunately for me, I was more than ten feet away from them, so I didn't hear a word of it.
We were told that the large Ferris Wheel currently sitting in the middle of Sheffield's city centre would be lit up pink when the evening drew on. I was still in town later in the evening, to find the lighting covered about two metres up a single leg, and didn't stay on constantly.
Then the event ended, maybe. Tia Anna of X-factor notoriety (really, listening to some of the comments of the crowd around me were not positive) seemingly had pushed her way into the billing and made a quick speech after the event had finished. She was dressed for the event in a completely pink outfit (her shoes were slightly too big, I had noticed earlier in the evening). She approached me afterwards, as a transwoman she had spotted and wanted to talk to. She told me she does transgender drag acts, something I could have pieced together from her attire. It was a worry for me, that of the two people who were visible and transgender or transsexual, one left a very strong impression and image on the brain, where the other, didn't. I feel that I would have preferred just seeing Carol Robson as the only transgender representative, being much more casually dressed and not being so stereotypical as the extravagantly dressed Tia Anna.
So, as far as transgender and transsexual support from the event goes, it felt a little lacking. It was a very positive event (if a little small for a city the size of Sheffield) for the gay and lesbian communities however. Not an event I'd recommend for its transgender and transsexual support.
The event was organised by Matt Harrison (unknown affiliation) and Kate Flannery (city council).
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