The purpose of Pride Month is to assure LGBTQ+ people that they don’t have anything to be ashamed of. The reason this needed to be made clear is because society used to present the exact opposite message to LGBTQ+ people.
While things have improved in many ways, we shouldn’t pretend LGBTQ+ people enjoy universal acceptance now. We also need to acknowledge that things have slidden backwards in many regards, especially for the trans community.
Worryingly, there are signs this backslide will only get worse as Reform gains political power. This is manifesting right now through Reform-run councils doing everything they can to hide LGBTQ+ people from the public.
‘Straight out of Trumpland’: LGBTQ+ members fight for Pride after Essex library banhttps://t.co/BLTRqnwMvh
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) June 15, 2026
Reform should be ashamed of itself
To give you an example of the bigotry LGBTQ+ people still face, here’s Reform leader, Nigel Farage, describing “trans ideology” as “poisonous”.
Reform UK will ban the poisonous trans ideology in our schools.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) June 20, 2024
When Farage and others like him speak of “trans ideology”, what they’re talking about is the acknowledgement trans people exist. We’ve been here before with ‘Section 28’.
Section 28 of the Local Government Act was introduced by Margaret Thatcher:
On 24 May 1988, in the face of widescale protests from LGBTQ+ activists and allies, the Local Government Act was passed. Within the Act was Section 28 – a seemingly small addition to the earlier Local Government Act 1986. It prohibited local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material’ and from teaching ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.
You’ll notice this is almost identical to the way that the right talks about trans people today. It’s unsurprising to hear it coming from Farage.
Very sad to hear of the death of Margaret Thatcher, a great patriotic lady.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) April 8, 2013
Much like Thatcher, Farage wants to run the country. But we don’t have to wait to see what Farage in power will look like because Reform-led councils are already doing what they can to bring his vision into existence.
Divide and conquer
Earlier this month, Maddison Wheeldon reported for the Canary that the Reform-led St Helens council would not support Pride Month or Refugee Week.
It said its decision was about “ensuring public money is not used for what it describes as ‘performative celebrations of one group’”.
However, the fact remains that it has seen fit to pay a consultant £50k a year on a four-year contract to inform Reform’s newly-elected councillors, despite the council already having paid council officers who are more than able to inform on council policy and process for all who require it.
Therefore, it seems Reform is more than happy for taxpayer funds to go to the ‘performative’ benefit of one group, so long as it’s ‘theirs’.
Council leader, George Woodward, later made the following announcement:
St Helens Borough Council won’t be supporting or promoting Pride. I have instructed officers to cease engagement with all aspects of the event.
We don’t consider celebrations of sexuality, especially those with left-wing political leanings such as Pride, to be appropriate for St Helens Borough Council to dedicate valuable officer resources.
I am also deeply concerned that Pride has become affiliated with harmful transgender ideology.
As a council, we have a duty of care towards young children in the borough. Being affiliated with a movement that often results in lifelong medical harm in young impressionable children is not the direction in which I want St Helens Council to travel.
If Pride is ‘left-leaning’, it isn’t because there’s anything inherently socialist about being LGBTQ+; it’s because the right scapegoated these people for decades.
Woodward is pushing the exact same Section 28 ideology as Farage and he isn’t the only one doing so either.
Pride Month hate is spreading
Since St Helens, several other Reform councils have made moves to hide the existence of Pride Month. They include Essex, Warwickshire and Staffordshire councils.
On the latter, the BBC reported:
Reform UK-led Staffordshire County Council says it will not feature LGBTQ+ Pride displays in its libraries, explaining the decision by saying public display space will instead focus on reading, learning and council services.
Meanwhile, Warwickshire Council’s leader is facing a code of conduct complaint.
George Finch is to face another code of conduct complaint, this time from Warwickshire Pride, after he said books containing “contested gender ideology” should not be promoted in libraries in the county.
Later referencing material featuring transgender issues, he said libraries should “not seek to embolden political ideologies”, which he said were “highly charged and polarising”, saying they should not be “taught to children as pure fact”.
Reform is also banning Pride events in libraries, the Guardian wrote:
Before Reform gained control of Essex county council in the May elections, Chris Taylor and members of the Rochford LGBTQ+ community already felt they were witnessing a growing tide of political rhetoric around identity.
But they were still shocked when the county’s new leadership moved to ban Pride events in 74 libraries, scaling back events of “any particular groups or themes”, a decision they said was “straight out of Trumpland”.
Reform wants queer culture out of sight
As we can see, Reform’s strategy is to hide LGBTQ+ events and literature away from the public. This won’t be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind‘, though, because these politicians have no intention to stop obsessing over trans people.
Anti-trans rhetoric is a source of never-ending controversy for them, and these people thrive off grievance and division.
The time to fightback is now, anyway. While we’re not back to the Section 28 days just yet, we all know this is only heading in one direction.
Featured image via Ian Forsyth/ Eamonn M. McCormack/ Getty Images
By Willem Moore
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