{"id":33698,"date":"2025-07-26T14:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/belfast-prides-2025-not-going-back-theme-strikes-defiant-note\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T14:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:02:20","slug":"belfast-prides-2025-not-going-back-theme-strikes-defiant-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/belfast-prides-2025-not-going-back-theme-strikes-defiant-note\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast Pride’s 2025 ‘Not Going Back’ theme strikes defiant note"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Bernie Allen<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News NI<\/span><\/p>\n

Reporting from<\/svg>Belfast City Centre<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"PAPA Media<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Pride parade is making its way through the city centre<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Belfast Pride is striking a defiant note as it holds its annual parade in the city on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Pride’s 2025 theme is “Not Going Back”, which organisers said was chosen because they believe “LGBTQIA+ rights are under attack, here and across the world”.<\/p>\n

Stormont’s four executive parties, Sinn F\u00e9in, DUP, Alliance and UUP, have been told by Pride organisers they are not welcome at the parade because they supported a ban on puberty blockers<\/a> for under-18s.<\/p>\n

The parade started at Custom House Square at 13:00 BST and is making its way through the city centre before finishing in Victoria Street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thousands of people have lined the streets of Belfast waiting to catch a glimpse of this year’s parade.<\/p>\n

Organisers say they hope today’s parade shows the trans community that they are supported and that Belfast Pride stands for all.<\/p>\n

Around 12,000 people are taking part in the parade. The city is awash with colour and music as the parade makes its way to City Hall.<\/p>\n

There was a counter protest organised by church groups at city hall, with a police presence separating it and those attending the parade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Around 12,000 people are taking part in the parade<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

Organisers say they hoped today’s parade shows the trans community that they are supported<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
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The wider Pride festival has been running since 19 July and finishes on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The festival’s co-chairpersons, Neil Millar-McDonagh and Lynn Millar, said said the “Not Going Back” theme sent a clear message.<\/p>\n

“As we celebrate how far we’ve come, we stand firm in our commitment to keep moving forward – towards love, equality and justice for everyone in our LGBTQIA+ community,” they said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Political controversy<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\"PacemakerPacemaker<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in has taken part in Pride in the past<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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First Minister Michelle O’Neill said she was sad her party was not permitted to march in Belfast Pride over the puberty blockers ban.<\/p>\n

The Sinn F\u00e9in deputy leader said she would still celebrate Pride “in my own way”.<\/p>\n

Stormont’s Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir, who is gay, has said he will be taking part in Belfast Pride in a “personal capacity”.<\/p>\n

The majority of Pride parades across Northern Ireland have taken a similar decision and asked the executive parties not to attend.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) has said it will not be participating in Belfast Pride 2025 in an official organisational capacity.<\/a><\/p>\n

It said its staff are welcome to attend voluntarily as part of the HSC (Health & Social Care) LGBT Staff Forum, not in uniform.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Nolan Show understands that HSC bodies received legal counsel that they should not be seen to be participating in a protest against departmental policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Organiser Lynn Millar says “Pride has always been a protest”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Lynn Millar said that the rights of the transgender community were “under threat” as a result of the ban.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme<\/a>, she defended the decision to exclude executive parties from taking part in the parade.<\/p>\n

“We’re acting on what our trans community wanted us to do,” Ms Millar said.<\/p>\n

“Pride has always been a protest. It started out as riots – we’re not going back to that.<\/p>\n

“We celebrate Pride as well, but there will always be a political element when it comes to human rights and I’m not going to apologise for that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernie Allen BBC News NI Reporting fromBelfast City Centre PA Media The Pride parade is making its way through the city centre Belfast Pride is striking a defiant note as it holds its annual parade in the city on Saturday. Pride’s 2025 theme is “Not Going Back”, which organisers said was chosen because they believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[420,11137,6306,11136,840,2193],"class_list":["post-33698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-belfast","tag-defiant","tag-note","tag-prides","tag-strikes","tag-theme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33700,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33698\/revisions\/33700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}