Hope Shines Through: Pride 2025 Reflections

"A message to my younger self... You will make it past 16. You will find yourself surrounded with love. P.S. Luna is a kickass name."

With Pride season now coming to a close, we’re reflecting on a busy summer of marches, stalls, and community building. Every summer, volunteers deliver stalls at Prides across the UK, where attendees access our resources, share their stories, and become part of our community. All over the country, we ask attendees at Pride, "what would you say to your younger self?" Answers span advice, messages of comfort, words of hope for the future they're now living.

This year, for many of us, the run-up to Pride felt different, against a backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT+ hostility. The UK was ranked first in Europe for LGBT+ rights in 2015 - we've now tumbled to 22nd place out of 49, the fastest decline in Europe alongside Hungary and Georgia. The ongoing attack on trans rights leaves many members of our community in limbo - less supported and less safe. And, possibly linked to Trump’s rollback of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, some LGBT+ charities are facing a funding squeeze as corporate sponsors pull away.

So we entered Pride season with excitement, but also some trepidation. What will it be like this year? Will it be quiet, are sponsors really staying away? How many of the people we meet will be struggling? How will our message of hope - that it gets better - be received, when from one look at the news right now you can see that things are getting so much worse? 

In fact, Pride felt busier than ever. Against a backdrop of hate, our community and our supporters were ready to fight and celebrate.

• London Trans Pride was the biggest ever, with over 100,000 attendees.

• Reasons for hope weren’t hard to come by. Time after time, we heard stories about how love and understanding - from friends, family, or oneself - had changed the lives of LGBT+ people across the UK for the better.

• One thing that consistently stood out to our volunteers was that there were so many young people at Pride, often with their parents eager to support them and make the world a better place.

“We had so many impactful conversations with members of the public on the day. The one that stood out most was a mother and her young trans son. She was so enthusiastic about the concept of the charity and was thrilled to take part. She really wanted to make sure her son felt supported at every step of his journey, and felt encouraged and inspired by the resources provided on our social media and website.” - Izzy, Volunteer Ambassador 

"A message to my younger self... Not everyone will understand, but once you find your people... my god it gets AMAZING. P.S. you will get a girlfriend!"

When we say It Gets Better, we don’t mean that things get better on their own. We mean we put the work in. We mean that our community supports each other, so that the young people we met at Pride this year can grow up more confident, more supported, more sure of themselves than previous generations could. We can't do it alone - we need allies and bystanders to help us make the world a better place too. Together, we demand better from policy-makers, public figures, and all those in positions of power.

People are struggling right now. We’re up against so much hostility, in day-to-day life and increasingly from our government. As members of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition, we're fighting for change. We continue to grow our story collection sharing the perspectives of young LGBT+ people, for young LGBT+ people. Our latest blog post from a young trans person in our community has some great tips for balancing safety with self-expression in an increasingly hostile world.

And we do believe that it gets better - even now. Our supporters' messages to their younger selves this year showed us that, even as the world gets more hostile, life as an LGBT+ adult still offers opportunities our younger selves couldn’t dream of. Agency, freedom of expression, found family - the chance to be your most authentic self.

In the face of difficulty, we’re building a better world for each other. Join us.

Members of the It Gets Better UK team attend London Trans+ Pride 2025, with placards saying: "Trans Youth Deserve Better."

Support our work by volunteering or donating, so we can share our message of hope, support, and community with more young people across the UK.

How to feel like yourself in an unsafe environment?

Guest writer Mel, a trans young person in our community, shares his thoughts and some tips that have helped him feel safer expressing himself. In his own words below, here's what he does to feel safer - we hope you'll enjoy reading his ideas and perhaps find them useful for yourself.

Unfortunately, it's not always possible in terms of safety to express your identity, get a haircut or buy any gender affirming clothes. Everyone wants to feel comfortable about themselves, but it's very important to stay safe while doing so. I would like to share some ideas for the queer folks to feel more like themselves in the unsafe environment.

Tip 1: Don't overthink it

Firstly, and probably most importantly, don't overthink it - quite often others don't notice or even ignore the little things that can give you a lot of comfort. They don't live the same life as you and might not even be aware of the things that are very obviously gay to you and other members of the community. While it is very important to make sure that there aren't any threats around you, it doesn't mean you have to live in fear. Being cautious can come without being too scared to make a deep breath in your own life. Assess the risks, but don't overthink it too much.

Tip 2: How do you think about yourself?

Secondly, change the way you think about yourself. If you're trans, it might be helpful to think of yourself as being your gender with some opposite features. So if you're a transmasc it might be helpful to think of yourself as of a feminine boy rather than concentrate on the features of yourself that could be more masculine than they are. That will probably just add the pressure and lead to spiralling. Just think of who you want to be seen as and then feel free to soften the desired features until they start feeling like what you are. You are yourself regardless of your appearance!

Tip 3: Little ways to express yourself

I think that one of the things that helped me a lot, were subtle details like wearing rings or painting my nails black. Those little things can add confidence and be a great way to express self-love. Get a t-shirt in the lighter tone, so you get to feel more girly or choose the colours for the outfit that are similar to your flag - that is also a great outfit colour scheme advice(!). Little things like jewellery or belts can make you feel more like yourself while being unnoticed by others.

Tip 4: Hobbies

It is also great to have a little hobby that is associated with your identity, even if it is only you who thinks so. Journaling in a specific way or learning new things about that topic can be little thing that could bring a lot of joy and self-affirmation.

Tip 5: Small steps

Last, but not least: little identity goals for the day. Think of a little thing you want to do today to feel like you whether it is flexing in the mirror or touching grass or doing a spin once the outfit, even the most basic one, is put together. Those might be little things that become part of the routine, that reminds you who you are even if others don't agree with you.

What I couldn't imagine then

Lee talks about his experience from childhood to today, as he now lives a life he once never knew was possible.

Lee

I’m a (relatively) happy thirty-something queer trans man. I have a master’s degree, have worked up to almost a £45k salary, and am successful in consultancy, facilitation - and basically, talking to people.

Now, to paraphrase James Baldwin, I do not dream of labour and never have. But if you’d asked teenage me what their future would be, they definitely wouldn’t have pictured anything close to this. It didn’t seem possible. Why? I was an extraordinarily anxious child, and this culminated when I started high school.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? At school, I was diagnosed with ‘school phobia’; I was home-schooled for a while, prescribed anti-anxiety medication, and saw a local child psychologist. I can’t deny that some (maybe all) of these things helped me cope. But ultimately, my school wasn’t set up to support who I really was: a young trans man who didn’t know it yet.

I didn't even know transness existed, so how could I imagine it for myself?

It was also around that time I came out for the first time. As I understood myself then, I was a girl who liked girls. Beyond a few emo teens experimenting, I was, to my knowledge, the only girl who liked other girls. (Interestingly, I never called myself a lesbian and rarely even said I was gay.) With no education about sexuality at school - and certainly nothing about gender beyond rigid binary roles - I was working within the limits of what I knew. The L Word filled in some gaps (for better or worse), but the truth is I didn’t even know transness existed, so how could I imagine it for myself?

And to think, Section 28 had been repealed! This UK law banned the “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities, including schools. Though it ended in England and Wales in 2003, its chilling effect lingered. Teachers were afraid to talk openly about LGBTQ+ lives. There were no queer role models in the curriculum, no safe spaces to ask questions, no language for who I was. I didn’t know trans was a thing - so I couldn’t be it.

The discomfort I'd always carried wasn't random; it had a name, and it had answers.

Things changed at university. I met other queer people. I had room to breathe, question, choose. I wasn’t “the weird one” - I was just one of many figuring things out. I discovered that the discomfort I’d always carried wasn’t random; it had a name, and it had answers. I began transitioning in my mid twenties and slowly started becoming myself.

Though trans rights today are far from perfect, I’d still rather be happy and trans than unhappy and not.

That anxious, unsure teen wouldn’t have believed this life was possible. But it is. And it can be for you, too.