Well, that was amazing. When I got to the Marlborough in the morning it was clear that there were way more people than last year. I found Roz Kaveney, and we stood on the kerb together watching the parade leave. We estimated around a thousand people, and when I found Fox to ask about numbers I learned that the police had suggested a similar number. You got a real feel of it entering St. James Street because that goes up a hill and you could see people all the way up as far as the turning where they headed off to Dorset Gardens. Presumably they stretched all the way there as well, as there was a backup while the marchers got through the gate into the park.

Of course many people didn’t go on the march, and the park was packed all day. I don’t think that they had to start controlling access, but it can’t have been that far off needing to. Hopefully today I’ll find out how many wristbands they gave out.

There were also more stalls this year, most significantly the addition of Stonewall. Their process of incorporating trans people into their organization is going quite slowly, mainly because Ruth Hunt and her team are being very sensible and are trying hard to listen to lots of people before making any moves. But change is happening, and thus far it is looking good.

As far as I know, the day went very well, though there were the inevitable angry activists ready to complain at the slightest infraction of how they think things should have been done. There was certainly a good point to be made about access to the park, but the organizers do have to work with what the City Council will let them have, and are not rolling in money.

Talking of which, there must be a question as to what to do next year, because if the event keeps growing at this rate Dorset Gardens will be too small for it then. And, as we have seen with other Pride events, the bigger you get the more likely you are to be swamped with straight cis folks wanting to benefit from the free entertainment and gawp at the queers. Brighton Pride has apparently responded by getting hugely commercial. I’m very glad that Bristol hasn’t done that, but I understand the pressures that can cause it.

While it was very heartwarming to see so many people being happy and proud of being trans, the fight is far from won. A big crowd is a sign of some social acceptance, but it won’t necessarily result in political action, nor does it mean that everyone is onside. Here are a few examples of why we still have a long way to go.

On arriving at the park I learned of yet another murder of a trans woman in the USA. That’s 11 so far this year.

On my way into town to get dinner I saw, coming the other way, a tall, well-built woman with a shaved head. Once she had passed us the people behind me (apparently tourists) started making comments about “tr*nn*es”. Given the woman’s prodigious curves, that was one heck of a transformation if she was trans, but over 6 foot tall and shaved head said “really a man” to these idiots. It is instructive to hear what people have to say about your kind when they think you are not listening.

I had dinner at the Brighton Giggling Squid, partly because I wanted seafood and partly because Kevin and I had eaten there so doing so would help him feel part of the day. The food was good (there are photos in my Twitter feed), but after I had paid the bill the waiter deliberately addressed me as “sir”. There’s no doubt this was a calculated insult. It is not as if I don’t present as obviously female, it hadn’t been an issue before, but once he had my money (including his tip) he felt free to make his feelings known. I complained on Twitter. The chain has seen my tweets because they took notice of others, but they have not responded to the complaint. That’s one restaurant I won’t be going back to. Thankfully there are many other really good places to eat in Brighton.

So yeah, there’s a long way to go. The questions we have to address are, now that we have Stonewall on board, what campaign do we run, and how do we make sure it doesn’t leave a large part of the community behind the way that the Gender Recognition Bill did?