"It is for the LGBTQ community to decide who takes part in our demonstrations, not the PSNI.

The PSNI should never have been involved in pride parades in the first place, pride always has been and remains a political protest, with deeply held connections to past movements of liberation from systemic injustices which the PSNI has played a full part in.

We only have to look a few years back to the BLM protests in Belfast and Derry where the PSNI's handling of those events warranted not just one but two highly critical reports from the police ombudsman and the policing board citing discrimination towards attendees of those demonstrations.

The current culture wars being stoked by the right-wing against our community, specifically against Trans & non-Binary folks are abhorrent, to help combat this trend prides across the UK are choosing campaigns similar to Belfast prides "Stand by your Trans" as a means of showing solidarity with those within our community who are under attack, for the PSNI to choose this particular campaign to pull support for pride shows clear as day their involvement with pride was only ever skin deep.

The PSNI has a lot of work to do to repair relationships with the LGBTQ community & other minority groups in Northern Ireland, superficial support is simply not good enough.

As reported Homophobic and Transphobic hate crimes are at their highest in recent years, it is unacceptable that the vast majority of these fail to end in prosecution, the authorities need to do more to deal with this disparity and increase confidence with the police."

ENDS