Well, it appears that I left Pride somewhat early yesterday. Or possibly I didn’t, because if I hadn’t I might be in prison now for assaulting a police officer. It appears that after I left Roz decided that she needed a call of nature. And a steward at Pride told her that trans women were not allowed to use the women’s toilets at the event – they had to use the gender-neutral disabled toilets instead. And then some idiot policeman told her that trans people have to be able to present a valid Gender Recognition Certificate before they are allowed to use gender-appropriate bathrooms.

By the way, I’m not outing anyone here. Roz is well known as a transgender activist. The whole thing is chronicled on her LiveJournal here, and on the Trans at Pride web site here.

I should note here that this does not appear to be an official Pride policy. The stewards were apparently hired help, not community volunteers, but that’s no excuse for the Met. If they have police on duty at Pride they ought to make sure that they are properly trained. But of course what we get instead is more security theater. Our law enforcement officials are far more interested in demanding people’s papers at any and every opportunity than they are in treating citizens with respect.

As for the bathroom nonsense, the whole thing is just ludicrous. Roz is post-op and has been living as a woman for decades. She uses women’s bathrooms in all sorts of places on a regular basis without any problem. The only difference yesterday was that she was at Pride, wearing badges, and thus easily identified as a “tranny” (and a female tranny at that), and therefore became a target for bigots.

I shall write something about bathrooms. But not now. I am too angry.