14th October 2025

Blog: Why we need Pride

This summer saw a host of LGBTQ+ Pride events from Cornwall to the Highlands and Islands. In this blog, THRE team member Graham Ross reflects on the importance of Pride, particularly as someone living in rural Scotland.

With Pride events now taking place across the UK for much of the year, from Aberystwyth in April, to St Ives Pride in October, LGBTQ+ Pride and signs of the visible progress made by LGBTQ+ communities such as shops displaying pride flags and greater representation in the media can now be seen year-round. This is a fantastic sign of progress, but we don’t need to look very hard to find members of the public, media figures and others in society who look at this hard-won progress and ask the question why do we still need Pride?

In this blog I want to reflect on Pride but also try to answer this question. As a straight cisgender man, I am writing this blog from the perspective of an ally to LGBTQ+ community, the voice of this community is the voice we need to hear the loudest, but it is also the responsibility of allies to add our voices and try to promote equality whenever we can.

When we look back at the history of Pride, like so much social change, it was led by brave activists who fought for their rights and beliefs. These changes are often started by a spark, in the case of Pride the stonewall riots in New York city in 1969 are often seen as that spark that helped create a movement and inspired activists to challenge the current laws and attitudes. The UK’s first Pride march was on the 1 July 1972 with the date being deliberately chosen as the nearest Saturday to the third anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Since these foundations, Pride in the UK has grown to incredible heights, this is reflected not just in the success of the activism that runs alongside, but in the fact everyone in society can identify what the images and symbols associated with Pride look like and what they stand for.

So, with this history in mind, it’s important to turn to the question of Why do we need Pride? Or more accurately why do some people think we don’t need Pride?

One of the main arguments that is put forward is that we live in a world now, where the laws and society are on the side of the LGBTQI+ community. Another common one is that pride has gone too far, and it has become something that impressionable young people have latched onto. These ideas may seem absurd to many of us, but they are sadly more common than we would hope, and we only need to scratch the surface of society or the media to see how widespread these views can be.

I disagree strongly with these views and would like to explain why. If we look at the historical context mentioned above, it is a fact that these huge and important changes have only happened relatively recently – these are changes that still need to be nurtured and held onto, and as events have shown both in the UK and the USA progress and rights can change quickly and unexpectedly in both directions.

Another important perspective to take is that while a wider acceptance of some parts of the LGBTQ+ community has undoubtedly been achieved, the same cannot be said for say trans or non-binary members of society, both these groups are still often denied basic forms of dignity and respect and at worst attacked. For example, government statistics in Scotland alone, showed an increase in transgender hate crimes of 87% over a one-year period 2021/2022*. This alone should end the discussion of why we still need pride in the UK.

As someone who was born and grew up in a rural area and has lived in urban areas, small towns and in the countryside, I have often thought about what the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community are like in rural places, and the challenges they face compared to my own experience as a straight man.

The difference is made clear in a 2023 report by LGBT Youth Scotland, where they looked at the experiences of young people living in rural communities. One statistic from this report that stood out to me was that “59% of non-rural-based participants believed that their local area was a good place for LGBTQI+ young people, as compared to 39% of rural-based participants”. For me this is another compelling argument for why we still need pride celebrations and activism across Scotland.

I don’t think that this statistic should be seen simply as a criticism of those living in rural communities but as a reflection of a lack of services, groups, and information in schools. Having lived in rural communities, it is also my experience that a smaller population can feel more supportive, and your voice can be heard more easily.

I have recently turned forty and when I was a teenager, there were no Pride or similar events in my far North rural community, I don’t remember hearing about any events in other rural areas that I knew either. Fast forward to today and we have Pride events as far down as Oban, as far north as Caithness and taking place in several of the Islands. Scotland has been transformed, people have understood the importance of Pride and embraced the event.

We can look at this topic through the lens of living rurally, via reports and statistics and via anecdotal evidence and lived experience, regardless of how we do this, there is a wealth of information out there that supports the case for why we still need Pride celebrations in Scotland. If nothing more, we should as citizens be celebrating the sacrifices and incredible achievements of those activists past and present that have got us to a more diverse and as a result, stronger society.

*https://www.copfs.gov.uk/media/d3jnt5t2/hate-crime-2021-22-publication-final.pdf