Record numbers for university in Pride Parade

This year’s Brighton and Hove Pride Parade’s theme of ‘Generations of love’ was a fantastic fit to the university, as it celebrated LGBT+ identities across generations to mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising that ignited the Pride movement.

The university’s presence was organised by the Equality and Diversity team and supported by SouthCoast Conferences, with Print Services designing and producing the vinyl for our fantastic rainbow bus. More than 60 students and staff members joined the university’s Parade, our best attendance to date, with plenty more spotted cheering in the crowd.

This year, the university's LGBT+ Staff and Student Societies and allies were joined by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Debra Humphris, Director of People, Julie Fryatt and PVC Education and Students Professor Ruth Whittaker in our best attended parade to date. 

Professor Humphris said: “Following our Stonewall success this year, it is essential for the university to continue to play its part in Pride as a symbol of our institutional support for the LGBT+ community.”

The university Pride bus with Debra Humphris and members of the Pride parade

The university Pride parade

For Professor Ruth Whittaker, Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Education and Students the day was a family affair: “I was so excited and proud to march in my first Pride Parade with my colleagues and our students with my daughter by my side!"

Julie Fryatt, Director of People, spoke of the importance that the annual Pride celebrations has for Brighton and Hove as a city and a community stating that: “Brighton and Hove’s LGBT+ community is an integral part of the city’s culture and it would not be the city we love and call home without the fantastic and colourful Pride Parade.”

Following a student design competition, staff and students marching with the university in the Parade wore t-shirts in the LGBT+ rainbow colours with a print designed by BSc(Hons) Applied Psychology student Lux Ciampa. The image incorporated the diversity of the LGBT+ community and gave an important message which was greatly received by the crowd.

The University of Brighton this year celebrated being named as one of the top employers for LGBT+ people in the UK in the Stonewall Top 100, ranked 72^nd in the 2019 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. As part of the ongoing LGBT+ equality work at the university, an LGBT+ allies initiative was launched last year and there are now 40 trained LGBT+ allies across the university.

 Anyone interested in joining a future cohort can email the Equality and Diversity team at equality@brighton.ac.uk.