One Tick… Two Ticks… Blue Ticks…

On Saturday afternoon, I marched with more than 150,000 people at London’s largest-ever Trans Pride. It was joyful, defiant and full of hope. But it was also ordinary in the way freedom should be. For a few hours, the streets belonged to our community. Friends united, families marching together, strangers celebrating together.

By Saturday evening, I was frantically messaging friends in Berlin. Christopher Street Day had been attacked. News was still emerging. Rumours travelled faster than facts, but no one yet knew the full extent of what had happened. I found myself doing what so many of us have done before: scrolling through names, sending message after message, trying to remember who I knew had travelled to Berlin and who might have been at the parade.

One tick.

Two ticks.

Blue ticks.

Finally, a message.

Safe.

The relief was immediate. 

While we know too well from our work every day the threats activists and members of our community face, it was still shocking to see these scenes play out in a city many would consider safer- and in a city I had been only days before.

But it was quickly replaced by another feeling – one that has become increasingly familiar to many of us over the past few years. 

In Berlin over the weekend, someone went to Pride and didn’t return home. 

For many of us, that is the hardest truth to confront.

At Kaleidoscope Trust, we spend every day working alongside activists who face intimidation, violence and criminalisation simply for existing. We know the difficult choices people make: whether it is safe to return home after travelling abroad; whether an organisation can continue operating after threats; whether speaking openly about who you are places you and your family at risk.

We’ve supported movements that continue organising even when governments have labelled them extremists, foreign agents or criminals. For many of our partners, the fear I felt on Saturday evening is not exceptional. It is routine.

Berlin reminds us that none of us should take comfort in believing these experiences belong somewhere else. In Europe, we’ve seen Prides questioned, banned, and attacked. Around the world, new laws criminalise and restrict us, healthcare is withdrawn and denied, and our existence is threatened. Some people do not want us to live or exist. 

Over the last decade, attacks on LGBTI+ communities have become increasingly organised. They rarely begin with physical violence. They begin with language. Communities are described as threats to children. Rights become “ideology”. Equality becomes “special treatment”. Pride becomes “provocation”. The target shifts from individuals to an imagined enemy that can be blamed for wider social anxieties.

Only then does discrimination become easier to justify.

Only then does violence become easier to imagine.

This is not simply prejudice. It is a political strategy.

Around the world, we have documented the same patterns emerging in different contexts. Democratic institutions weaken. Independent civil society comes under pressure. Disinformation spreads online. Minority communities become convenient scapegoats. LGBTI+ people are rarely the only target, but we are often among the first.

The attack in Berlin should not be viewed in isolation from these wider trends.

For many years, it felt as though history moved in one direction.

Visibility led to understanding.

Understanding led to acceptance.

Acceptance led to greater equality.

In many places, that story was real. Lives changed because people chose to be visible despite the risks. Laws improved. Families became more accepting. Young people grew up seeing futures that previous generations could barely imagine.

But progress was never inevitable.

Rights do not sustain themselves. Democracies do not defend themselves. 

This is not a call to arms; rather, it is a statement of fact. And frankly, too many people are dying. My community’s proximity to death is unbearable at times. 

We thought that visibility would save us – that others would like and accept us if they just got to know us. And, in part, that was true. But the signs are clear and alarming: that visibility is now used against us.

There’s no bravery in denying the fear we feel, but courage lies in how we choose to move forward. 

The freedoms we enjoy today exist because generations before us organised, protested and refused to accept that exclusion was inevitable. Every advance has required people prepared to challenge the status quo, often at considerable personal cost.

Of course, we show up, we fight, we show our solidarity, we choose our own frontline wherever we can. But this isn’t about whether your life is on the line, it is knowing that in our fight, someone’s life is at risk. We cannot ignore this reality. Violence does not emerge from nowhere. It follows years of rhetoric, dehumanisation and political choices that make some lives appear less worthy of protection than others.

On Saturday afternoon, London Trans+ Pride felt like a celebration.

By Saturday evening, Berlin was a reminder of why Pride exists in the first place.

Someone left their home to live, to fight, to be free, and they died.

I know this must strengthen our resolve, but I’ll be honest, I’m finding that difficult today. I’m sad, a little fearful, and distracted by the pain I see in friends and in myself. 

I know that with time, that pain will ease, the bruising will fade, but our community will still be left with the scars. So today is not a day for easy answers or for mustering false hope. It is a day for honesty: about where we are, what has changed, and what is required of us next.

The answer cannot be retreat. Nor can it be despair.

The relief I felt when my friends finally replied to my messages is something everyone deserves: the certainty that those we love will come home safely after gathering in public as themselves.

For too many people around the world, that certainty does not exist.