United Kingdom

A police force has agreed to remove all Pride rainbows and transgender livery from its vehicles following a landmark High Court ruling.

Northumbria Police has also told its officers and staff they cannot attend a Gay Pride march in uniform this weekend, in a move that could set a precedent for other forces.

Northumbria was taken to court by a gender-critical lesbian who said it was wrong for officers to take part in events that promoted gender ideology.

The move comes after Linzi Smith, 34, a gender-critical lesbian from Newcastle, brought a case against Northumbria Constabulary, arguing that it had been wrong to allow uniformed officers to actively participate in an event that promoted gender ideology and was supported by transgender activists.

In his ruling, the judge, Mr Justice Linden, said it was important that police forces were not perceived as taking sides in contentious social debates.

Ffs. Police officers want to support a gay pride event, and a Lesbian woman became so offended by that she raised a court case against them. One that I cannot believe was upheld.

And as for the judge saying police attending means they're "choosing sides"... fucking hell. It's a Pride event. The "sides" are the LGBT community and those that hate them. It is an offence under the Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against LGBT people, so the police very much should be on one side, and they broadly were until TERFs started throwing their toys out of the pram.

Why are TERFs so emboldened here?

Imagine telling someone this a few decades ago:

"Yeah the police want to support a LGBT pride event and..."

"Wait they what? They want to support it? Not shut it down?"

"...yeah, support and attend. Anyway the court ruled against it."

"Lobbying and moral panic from anti-LGBT clergymen, I suppose?"

"Nah, a small group of lesbians."

You can't make this shit up. Imagine hating trans people so much that you're willing to turn against the whole LGBT Pride movement, while being in a same sex relationship. The mind reels.

From the article:

The move comes after Linzi Smith, 34, a gender-critical lesbian from Newcastle, brought a case against Northumbria Constabulary, arguing that it had been wrong to allow uniformed officers to actively participate in an event that promoted gender ideology and was supported by transgender activists.

From the BBC:

People who filled out the 2021 census in England and Wales were asked: "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?" According to the ONS, 262,000 people - around 0.5% of the population - answered "no".

The ONS states that there are 60,238,000 total people in England and Wales.

Gender critical people, almost always cis women, can go to hell. They go out of their way to try (and lately succeed) to suppress any support for trans people and to exclude trans women from any space that is oriented for women. They fear monger, calling us perverts and degenerates that want to prey on poor, defenseless, innocent women.

Anyone who advocates for the disenfranchisement of trans people is an objectively shit person. We just want to live our lives and not be singled out for discrimination.

It's honestly getting depressing here in the UK the vast majority of people are good honest open minded people, but for some reason single bigoted people keep being allowed to make the place worse in the name of 'free speech' the results going to be the police staying away to be impartial and a bunch of reform voting trogladites causing trouble in the name of free speech.

Never mind the comments here on Lemmy, but you really need a hazmat suit to enter the comments on that article. Over 1400 of them, each somehow a different type of phobic. Living up to the nickname "TERF Island".

nothing pride related should be near anything pig related. pigs are not and have never been friends to lgbtq people. they’re literally the arm the state uses to brutalize them for asking for equal rights.

while its a brutal reality why they’re removing their fake support of pride from their vehicles, its the same reality as before except now they’re not pretending to care. this is better because it doesnt give the naive an illusion or boot lickers an argument

I’m not sure it was the wisest idea to put the rainbows on the vehicles in the first place. Is someone panicking, with visual or cognitive impairment, at night, going to instantly recognise it?