Hastings Pride 2018 East Sussex

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Hastings Pride returns for 2018 with a free-to-attend Festival and Parade through the town. You can check our website for information, downloads, and donation links to contribute to this not-for-profit event that focuses on celebration and support for the local LGBT+ community.

This year we're reaching for the stars with the theme of "no discrimination, no alienation" so join us for an amazing day! After the success of last year’s Hastings Pride, celebrating the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, this year’s theme of space and aliens may seem a little frivolous. All of us at Hastings Pride can assure you that you could not be further from the truth. Bringing people together is at the heart of Hastings Pride and we achieve this by ensuring an inclusive fun and entertaining day. Hastings Pride is about breaking down social barriers by bringing people together and conveying the important messages which cause the divisions we’re fighting against.

30 years ago, this year, the LGBT+ flag was first used. It represents the unity of the LGBT+ community. The LGBT+ community represents something which cuts though race and religion and brings us together through the core of our humanity, our sexuality, gender identity and spiritual being. So why an Alien and Space theme you may ask!

Originally the word ‘Xenophobia’ comes from the Greek words xénos, meaning ‘the stranger’ and ‘the guest’ and phóbos, meaning ‘fear’. Thus, xenophobia stands for ‘fear of the stranger’, but usually the term is taken to mean ‘hatred of strangers. In this past year we have seen that hate crime has risen significantly. The Stonewall School Report found:
Nearly half of LGBT pupils (45 per cent) – including 64 per cent of trans pupils – are bullied for being LGBT in Britain’s schools.
Seven in 10 LGBT pupils report that their school says that homophobic and biphobic bullying is wrong, up from half in 2012 and a quarter in 2007. However, just two in five LGBT pupils report that their schools say that transphobic bullying is wrong
More than four in five trans young people have self-harmed, as have three in five lesbian, gay and bi young people who aren’t trans
More than two in five trans young people have attempted to take their own life, and one in five lesbian, gay and bi students who aren’t trans have done the same

The underlying cause of any hate crime is the Hate and Fear of ‘Others’. Discrimination should not be up for debate. Homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia needs to be always called out for what it is, and it is a contamination within society which needs to be treated and cured now. This is what lies at the heart of this year’s Hastings Pride.

When we went back 50 years last year it was a time when society was coming together through social movements and social change. It was a time of scientific discovery as we dared to reach for the stars and understanding the world we live in. It was a time of inspiration, dreams, aspiration and hope.
Now we are left with cynicism, scepticism and growing inequality as we become consumed by fear and hate enshrined in a culture of blaming the ‘Other’. Imagine if you were a visitor to our planet looking down from space to the world we live in, most of us would turn away from in dread. We would like to leave you with this quote:-

“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”
~ Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) ~

Now more than ever, we need to come together, to celebrate our differences, to fight against oppression and discrimination for a society where we all stand together as equals creating a brighter future for all humanity and giving us back hope of a better tomorrow.

This is our message,
our inspiration,
& our HOPE
Hastings Pride 2018