First Trans Pride event launches in Brussels

Brussels’ transgender community has decided to launch its own Pride event this year. The Trans*March will take place on 4 May, with related activities staged all next week.

While the organisers of the march, Transemble, are not against the Belgian Pride parade and related events, they want to draw specific attention to the difficult and often dangerous position transgendered, intersexed and gender non-conforming people often find themselves in.

The event on 4 May, which is also being done in Brighton, Cologne and Paris, will include a march and after-party for the trans community and their allies. Other activities related to Trans Pride will take place at Barlok on the canal.

“Belgium has done much for trans rights,” Quinn of Transemble told Bruzz, “but still trans safety is not a given. Society is becoming much more polarised, and transgendered people are too often the victim of that. They are inordinately represented in unemployment, suicide and homicide statistics.”

Transemble has also chosen to not take part in Belgian Pride activities. “We are not against the big Pride event, but we are critical about how it is organised,” said Quinn. “The struggle for trans rights is connected to the struggle against racism, capitalism and discrimination in general. Belgian Pride is supported and financed by big business and political parties that are just responsible for this racism and that embolden this polarisation.”