London Trans+ Pride Press Launch Reveals March Will End In Trafalgar Square For The First Time

Zack Polanski, Romy, Zoë Garbett, and stars from Tip Toe, Sex Education and What It Feels Like For A Girl join community leaders to rally support ahead of Saturday’s historic march

With vocal celebrity support from Paul Mescal, Mel B, Michaela Coel, Jessie Ware, Jameela Jamil, Munroe Bergdorf and more

London Trans+ Pride takes place Saturday 25th July 2026

London Trans+ Pride held its press launch yesterday at Joiners Heart, the brand new LGBTQIA+ space in Hackney run by Friends of Joiners Arms, marking a much-anticipated soft opening for the venue. The launch drew a strong turnout of press, celebrities and community figures – including Zack Polanski, Romy, Zoë Garbett (Mayor of Hackney), Bambie Thug and stars from Tip Toe, Sex Education and What It Feels Like For A Girl – ahead of the organisation’s eighth march on Saturday 25th July, themed ‘Our Future, Our Fight’. The event also comes with a wave of public solidarity already behind this year’s march, including a first-ever public statement on trans rights from Paul Mescal, alongside messages from Mel B, Michaela Coel, Jessie Ware, Jameela Jamil, Munroe Bergdorf and more.

In a landmark announcement, one of the founding members of London Trans+ Pride, Lewis G Burton (they/she), revealed that this year’s march will, for the first time, finish in Trafalgar Square: “Due to our growth, I am pleased to share some news with you all – for the first time, we are going to be ending our march at Trafalgar Square. 100k trans+ people and our allies will be descending on one of the most recognisable landmarks in the UK, and taking up that space audaciously”.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski attended the launch, watching the panel before speaking to Scene Magazine at the event, saying: “I think one of the reasons why I’m here is, as a gay man, I understand when they come for one of us, they come for all of us, and ultimately we’ve got to stand together in solidarity… This is about clarity, it’s about leadership, it’s about standing with people who are asking for them to stand with us. I’m not interested in words, I’ve turned up today, I’m interested in action… Trans people are the canary in the coal mine, and as they roll back their rights, we know they’ll be rolling back rights for disabled people, migrants, gay people, women too. We are all on the chopping block unless we all stand together”.

The press launch comes a day after London Trans+ Pride issued a statement on the updated EHRC Code of Practice, which was given the green light this week and will require public service providers to follow the guidance from 5th August in order to operate lawfully. In the statement, LT+P said the Code “interprets the law” rather than changing it, and pledged to “continue to resist, to protest and to live in spite” of the government’s attempt to eradicate trans people from public life, calling on allies to write to their MPs and march on 25th July. Find the full statement here.

The press launch featured a panel hosted by Lewis G Burton, joined by activist and influencer Rain Dove (they/he/she), Tip Toe actresses Iz Hesketh (she/her) and Shakeel Kimotho (she/her), Trans Unity Quilt co-creator Mars Callick, and LT+P’s EM Williams, working in the organisation’s access team.

A central thread of the panel was the real-world fallout of the Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC guidance: the surveillance of who is and isn’t permitted to use single-sex spaces, and the fact that this scrutiny does not stop at trans+ people. Rain Dove illustrated this with a social experiment designed to test the public’s ability to police gender on sight: “I did a social experiment where I lined up five people and asked the public to identify which toilet each individual should use. No one got it right… It is wildly dangerous to see ourselves as ideas, not people.” Shakeel Kimotho placed that same anxiety in a wider frame: “It’s so much bigger than us, this is an everybody problem – our fathers with long hair, our mothers with short hair, we are being scapegoated… At London Trans+ Pride next week we must lean into everything we feel – be able to simultaneously hold joy and grief and revel in each other’s incredibleness!”

EM Williams spoke about the access work underpinning the event: “My work at LT+P is around meaningful access. I joined 3-4 years ago and have developed what I call our access consciousness programme. It starts from the premise that we are not an expert in your disability. We can facilitate the process of you telling us what your access needs are – if we can’t meet those needs, we are the ones who are failing, not you”.

Mars Callick discussed the Trans Unity Quilt, a 96-metre patchwork co-created with CN Lester and Good Law Project, made up of over 300 patches contributed by trans volunteers across the UK depicting memorials, inside jokes and family celebrations. Volunteers will carry its 12 panels through London on 25th July, after which it will be held at Bishopsgate Archives before touring Pride events nationally. Callick reflected: “The quilt is about capturing the trans experience in fabric. There is a long history of textiles being used as resistance over history, to tell stories, to keep ourselves safe, to keep ourselves sane… We want it to inspire people to do more to fight for each other”. More on the Quilt here.

With the march now just a week away, anticipation is building among panellists and attendees alike. Iz Hesketh summed up the mood: “What I am most excited about, ahead of the march, is being surrounded by trans joy. Seeing us happy and thriving just moving through London. I am excited to have a good time – coz we deserve it!”

Notable attendees at the launch included Romy, Zack Polanski, Zoë Garbett (Mayor of Hackney), Hannah Jones (What It Feels Like For A Girl), LEXA (Sex Education), Bambie Thug, Charlieeeee, Ruby Rare, Iz Hesketh, Shakeel Kimotho, Rain Dove, I JORDAN, Planningtorock, Ruti, Dylan And The Moon, and Not A Phase.

London Trans+ Pride returns to central London on Saturday 25th July 2026 for its eighth year, following last year’s march of over 100,000 people, the largest trans pride event in history. This year’s march will begin at Langham Place at 1pm, finishing for the first time in Trafalgar Square.