Five days after an incident at my local Pride event in Leicester where I received a torrent of abuse online for asking event organisers why a member of their team was wearing a high-vis jacket with the word 'tranny' printed on the back, Leicester Pride has released an official statement regarding the incident.
Apology from Leicester Pride
With reference the recent event in Leicester and it being highlighted to us about the use of the word 'Tranny' being an offensive word to some people in our community, we would like to whole heartedly apologise for any offence taken. It was never meant in its context to be offensive and it was ignorant of us to think that in this day it was ok.
One the day of the festival comments were made on our Facebook page, which by the time we were aware had also got very abusive sub comments added by members of the public. We took what action we felt was right at the time, which was to delete the entire thread from our page.
Leicester Pride welcomes people from all walks of life and to think that this has in anyway ruined people's day when they were attending or upset them in any fashion is totally unacceptable and for that we once again apologise.
Since then we have been contacted by the publication Planet Transgender and agreed to meet to discuss this, although a formal time etc has not yet been agreed we hope that we can have an open discussion and move on from this is a positive way.
Leicester Pride will never encourage any sort of negatively to people in our community and hope this apology is accepted in the spirit it is intended.
Leicester Pride
I would like to thank the organisers of the event for taking this incident seriously, even though it did take them a while to respond to the incident it's encouraging to see that they have not just dismissed it out of hand the way that some groups might have done.
As they have said in their statement, they have been contacted via Planet Transgender, who I work with, and they have greed to discuss the matter with us further, As the rest of the Planet Transgender Team are not within the UK I am pleased to be the one to talk to them regarding this matter, and am hoping that they contact us regarding this very soon.
Amy.
xx
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