To launch Trans Pride UK, Calling have created a powerful campaign with the simple message: ‘No Pride Without Trans Pride’. 

The campaign is designed to make Trans rights everybody’s issue. As well as celebrating the historic role trans people played in establishing Pride as a protest.

Trans Pride UK launched this year and is formed of a collective of over 14 Trans Pride organisations from across the UK and Ireland, that are together committed to learning lessons from the queer past, planning ahead and avoiding Pride washing.

To this end, Trans Pride UK is focused on grassroot organising skills, sharing best practice, values, and stories in order to ensure that ‘heritage is prioritised over hedonism’. 

The ‘No Pride Without Trans Pride’ campaign also celebrates the historic role Trans people played in establishing Pride as a protest.

E-J Scott the Founder of Trans Pride UK, explained: “The protest for Pride is not over. Queer people are trans, and trans people are queer. We are front and centre of the increasing war being waged on all LGBTQIA+ people, both here in the UK and right around the world. This is not the time for the consumption of complacency. The rapid rise of fascism, the far right and separatist ideologies is burning like wildfire across the UK, throughout Europe and beyond. It must be stopped. This is precisely the moment we need to take stock and unite as a community, recalling that trans people have historically fought at the front of Pride marches on behalf of every single person’s right to live with dignity. We are brave, strong, and experienced. We have always been the yardstick for wider hate and today, are at the beating heart of what’s increasingly beginning to be inflicted upon our entire LGBTIQA+ community by haters and bigots. Trans people will continue to stand up for and protest on behalf of the entire queer community’s right to live safely and love freely. There is no pride without trans pride.” 

Hand-made protest posters print the basic rights called for by the trans community onto the legislative documentation that threatens the freedom of gender-nonconforming people. Reams of public documentation; from the Gender Recognition Act to the diminished rights of trans people in civil partnerships; provide the raw materials for the billboards. 

The campaigners explain that the campaign is also designed to challenge the direction and intentions of today’s mainstream Pride celebrations. Whilst visibly celebrating LGBTIQA+ culture is vital, the Pride movement’s heritage was one steeped in the fight for human rights. Acknowledging that the first ever Pride protest was led by Black Trans women in the US in 1969. The ‘No Pride Without Trans Pride’ campaign calls for a return to the roots of the Pride march, as the struggle for Trans rights continues. 

Josh Tenser, Executive Creative Director and Founder of Calling explained: “At Calling we know the privilege of having the trust of Trans Pride UK. The point became brutally simple to me. If we allow ourselves to debate the human rights of one marginalised community - what can of worms does that open? The rights of Jewish people up for debate? People of colour? People that’re disabled? We feel it’s a side of the debate that needs to be aired. Using the actual legislation that calls into question trans rights seemed the perfect raw materials for this campaign. Using our collective we were able to bring in trans writers and researchers - then screen printing the masters at FORT London - a trans- owned creative space.” 

Earlier this month Outvertising, the UK’s advocacy group for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in marketing and advertising, issued a powerful statement urging brands to stand their ground in Pride. The statement was backed by 64 of the industry’s most progressive and powerful organisations.