Well that went very well. We had a large group of people at City Hall to witness the raising of the Transgender Flag. Many of them were trans. There were also lots of allies, including the Rainbow Group, the Council’s LGBT staff network, who had organized the event; Simon Nelson, who I had on the radio yesterday; Out Stories Bristol, witnessing the historic event; Bristol University LGBT+, who ran such an awesome trans awareness campaign on Twitter this week; Bristol Pride; and LGBT Bristol.

The flag was raised by the Lord Mayor of Bristol, the Rt. Hon. Councillor Alastair Watson (who is a Conservative).

Some of the very many people in attendance are pictured below.


I was interviewed by Edward from Made in Bristol TV. I have no idea when/if that will air, but it was great to have them there. I just wish we’d had someone more photogenic lined up to talk.

Also I have edited a clip from the Lord Mayor’s speech for broadcast on Shout Out tonight. My guess is that it will go in the news section at the front of the show. I’m pleased about that because the Council folks cribbed much of the speech from the press release material I had written for them.

This evening we have two remembrance ceremonies: one in the city, and one later at Bristol University. I am reading The List at the first one, and hope to attend the second. There will also be people from LGBT Bristol and the Council on hand to engage with the trans community and hopefully take forward some of the issues that Simon and I discussed yesterday.