Statement from Warwickshire Pride on transphobic incident at Festival

At last year’s Warwickshire Pride festival, many of you will be aware that we had some trouble on site that led to the Police attending and making arrests. The nature of the incident was transphobia, aggression, and comments and gestures of a sexual nature towards members of our team. The offenders were asked to leave. They refused and continued to intimidate a member of our team. The Police were called and arrests were made.

Sadly, the outcome of the Police investigation is that no action will be taken against the offenders. This is because of there being no evidence, despite there being witnesses to what happened. Therefore, it is our word against theirs. Of course, evidence matters and we have to accept the outcome of the investigation.

We are strongly and actively against transphobia, sexual harassment, and discrimination and hate of any kind. We take a zero tolerance approach to it all.

Therefore, we are taking the following actions:

• Having banned the Spa Sisters group from having an official presence at Warwickshire Pride events, we have banned the individual members of that group who behaved in an aggressive, transphobic way and sexually harassed a member of our team.
  
• We will continue taking a zero tolerance approach to all forms of hate and discrimination. Anyone attending our events who behaves in a hateful or discriminatory way will be asked to leave and not permitted to attend in future.
  
• Body cams will be worn by key personnel at the Warwickshire Pride festival for the purposes of personal safety and capturing evidence if required.

If you are a victim of hate or discrimination because you are LGBTQ+, we encourage you to report it. You can report to Warwickshire Police by calling 999 in an emergency or 101 in a non-emergency. You can also go into a Police station or report online.

Another way of reporting is via https://www.reporthatenow.com. It is a dedicated hate crime reporting website for Warwickshire. Anything you experience, see, or hear can be reported. You can also report anonymously if you prefer.

You can also contact Warwickshire Pride at info@warwickshirepride.co.uk and we can support you or signpost to other sources of support.

The safety of everyone who attends our events and the safety of our team are our top priority. We will continue to do everything within our power to ensure people have a safe, happy time at Warwickshire Pride events.

Warwickshire Pride’s Board of Trustees