London Trans Plus Pride! - 25/07/2026

The days leading up to LT+P were quite stressful for me, both because of work and because of planning every tube, train and walking route to where we needed to be. I had never been to a march, protest or demonstration type thing before, so I was a bit nervous. What if the police tried to talk to me or bigots arrived? I knew not to interact with these people, but I can't say I wouldn't have been scared had they showed up. Anyway, the night before, Charlie's friend (who invited us to the march) messaged in our group chat that we were to arrive in Kings Cross, eat for 30 minutes and then head to Covent Garden to meet his other friends. I didn't know this was happening and didn't understand why we needed to go to Covent Garden to meet them there, why we couldn't just meet them at Kings Cross or Langham Place, plus I hadn't accounted for going to Covent Garden, I didn't know the route there, nor was I familiar with the area. It sounded like we weren't gonna have a lot of time to eat either. It was too late at night for me to really look up how we were gonna get from Covent Garden to Langham Place, or how to even get to Covent Garden in the first place. 

I was already stressed from having a shitty week at work (idk how no one has gotten heat stroke on one of the lines at my work), a march through somewhere unfamiliar to me was probably one of the last things I needed, but I went through with it anyway, as I had already paid for tickets for me and my partner, and if I didn't go, Charlie couldn't go, which I didn't think was fair. 

The morning arrived and we had to catch a fairly early train to London, it was at 9:30-ish (so I had to wake up at 5am, which is only an hour later than the time I usually get up to get ready for work, at least I had an hour lay-in I guess? I wanted to do my makeup too) to Peterborough and then 10 something to London, and the train was a direct, so I had ensured to book seats for Charlie and I. His friend sorted himself out with tickets and we were going to meet him in Peterborough. I had arrived at Charlie's house by around 8:30 to drop off a wash bag, as I was staying in his house for the last time (he is moving house, don't worry!). We both had our signs in our bags, I had the genderqueer flag with "I reject my mortal flesh" scrawled over it, the letter A being the anarchy A. Meanwhile, Charlie had the demisexual and demiromantic flag with "This is my identity" written on it. Charlie's mum, very kindly, dropped us off at the train station, I picked our tickets up from the machine (I wanted to get physical tickets in case my phone died or something), which I had never done before. We got given 4 tickets each! Two were seat reservations and two were our actual tickets to and from London. 

We got to Peterborough with no issues, I fiddled with Anxiety (my crocheted fidget mushroom) as Charlie and I chatted. We met Charlie's friend on the platform, introduced each other and chatted as we waited for our train. When we got on, Charlie's friend had already booked a seat but we couldn't move our seats to be closer to each other, I think only in first class you can pick and choose specific seats like for an aeroplane. Luckily, Charlie's friend managed to find a place near us to sit, we did have to (nicely) kick some people who were sat in Charlie and I's seats, but they were accommodating and were willing to move. I did mention to the friend, that I may not be able to participate in the entire march, as I was still feeling pretty anxious at this point. 

We got to Kings Cross fairly swiftly, before walking over to Kings Cross St Pancras station to find food. We went to a very swish sandwich shop that I had been to with my family. I got a cheese and ham roll (which was really delicious btw!), Charlie got a bagel with breaded chicken, cheese, lettuce/ green leaves, pickle and tomato, topped with olives, and surprisingly, Charlie managed to eat the tomato, which is unusual because he doesn't like tomatoes (except in the form of Heinz Tomato Ketchup or as a paste on a pizza??). Charlie's friend seemly ate before getting to Peterborough, so he only got a mango and passionfruit cooler in a plastic can, the shop (which I think was called EL&N) had it's own lid press/ whatever the thing is called that puts the top on the can onto the the main body. 

After that, Charlie's friend led us to the tube to Covent Garden. We arrived with no issues, it was a little crammed on the tube, and I had to hold Charlie's arm because there was nothing else for me to hold, but it was okay, and got back into the sunlight and followed him to a MAC makeup store. In the basement was Mermaids (a charity and organisation that supports trans, nonbinary and gender-diverse youth, their support line is 08088010400, and a link to their website: Homepage - Mermaids ), and Charlie's friend is a volunteer, hence why we had to go to Covent Garden. MAC supports Mermaids, which is why we went into their basement to meet the rest of the people who were coming on the march. 

There were free wristbands handed out, as well as free button badges and Chappel Roan bullet lipsticks. I picked up a few badges, but I regret not getting any lipsticks for my mum, as she would've liked the colours and plus MAC is expensive! I'm not keen on bullet lipsticks, I find I can't get the precision with them. 

We waited around for the last few members on the group to arrive, then we set off. We walked to Langham Place as we all chatted amongst ourselves. We spotted some other groups of queers as well as a lady in a very beautiful dress having her picture taken! Our group did get slightly segregated on our way there, but we would always wait for the others to catch up. Upon arriving at Langham Place, a few people complained that the roads were worse than last year as normally they would already be closed off ready for the march. There were police walking about, still trying to get traffic out of the area and I assume still setting up and clearing the route. 

We waited for around maybe 30-45 minutes, we got our signs ready, the banners were ready to be displayed, and we were all ready to go! There was a band near the back of the march cycling through songs, our group was sort of in the middle, there were lots of people! The march was fairly slow moving of course, there was lots of cheering, some whistles were being blown, and so many proud people surrounded me, it was wonderful! I wasn't as overwhelmed as I thought I was going to be. There was a person who had a sign with some tallies already marked on it, it was a vote between "Ket or Catan" (spelling?) which neither me or Charlie voted on because neither of us do ketamine and we don't know what Catan is. There were lots of nicely dressed people, everyone had put effort into their outfits, I felt a bit drab compared to how I normally dress. If I hadn't gotten so stressed, I would've worn something a bit more me, I wanted to do something more interesting and androgynous like I did for Peterborough pride. Never mind. Maybe next year. 

We chanted, we held up our signs, we waved at the few people who were on the first or second floor of shops to wave at us, and throughout it all, we chatted, and I also admired the architecture. It was quite a lot of fun! Even Charlie started a chant towards the end! We started the march at around 3 o'clock and arrived in Trafalgar Square at around 4. I didn't plan on staying around for the like 2-3 hours of speeches afterwards, and because Charlie's friends had his group, I didn't feel too bad about dipping when we finished. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Charlie and I picked up 2 free bottles of water before heading into the underground. 

Originally, I was planning on taking Charlie to Spitalfields Market, in the hopes of getting a new top hat for him, and then to Brick Lane to find the massive vintage and secondhand shop, as I think he would've loved it there! But we were both tired, and I'm not super knowledgeable on that area, and we both wanted to go somewhere that was more recognisable to us, soooo we went to Camden. We needed dinner, and I thought about giving the food court another go, as I had only been there once in early to mid February with my parents (and I didn't have a very enjoyable time), its open plan and there's no doors or windows, so it was quite cold last time. 

We got a direct tube train to Camden, as Camden and Trafalgar Square are both on the (black) Northern Line, it was quiet in the station but packed on the tube itself! I managed to get a seat which Charlie let me have, Charlie just stood in front of me (though I was kind at the wrong height lmao). As we emerged from the underground, the same man trying to get us to talk about knife crime told us we dropped our smile! We just said no and speed walked away. We got across the canal and over to the food court. Charlie immediately sniffed out the burger stall and ordered, I felt like having a kebab so I went on a hunt for some. I went to both ends of the food court, upstairs and back down again and couldn't find anything, so I ended up having Japanese, I ordered rice with chicken and teriyaki sauce with a side of prawn tempura. I got a little turned around but managed to find Charlie again, seated at a barrel for a table. 

I felt the seats were too high because the table was at our knees, and we couldn't tuck ourselves in. Plus there was no back to the stools, so it was hard to relax fully. But we ate our food, which was extremely filling, Charlie had a pulled steak (? idk what it was but it looked tasty) burger with cheesy chips, which he felt he regretted as the burger was very filling and was probably enough for him. I had my food and I think the tempura was the best tempura I'd had in a while! It was so tasty! The teriyaki sauce was really good too (I let my partner try a bit and he really liked it), much better than the crap in Subway (their teriyaki sauce is just salty, teriyaki sauce is meant to taste sweet and salty)! 

After eating, we sat and chatted for a bit before heading back to Kings Cross. When we left, it was around 6pm, Charlie's friend had already headed home. The Camden nightlife had begun to awaken as the other shops had started to wind down. We got our tube with no issues, we were standing, but that was okay, we had both rested enough and we weren't very far from Kings Cross. Our train was already waiting at platform 9 when we arrived in Kings Cross, so we rushed over to our platform. Originally we went the wrong way, instead of heading to the left, we went straight forward, there was no platform 9 or 10 where we were, so we had to ask a member of staff how to get to platform 9. It was just at the end of platform 8, through a little tunnel. 

We got our train to Peterborough fine, we were a little delayed so when we arrived in Peterborough, our connecting train had just left the platform. Luckily we only had like a 15 minute wait before the next train. Charlie's dad picked us up and dropped us off at Charlie's house. We near enough got ready for bed immediately! We were both pretty tired. Overall, a good day, it went a lot better than I was expecting! Thank you to Charlie and his friend for inviting me along! 

The march took place prior to the tragedy in Berlin, my condolences to the family and friends of the woman who has passed away, and wishing a speedy recovery to those who were injured, I am devastated by this horrible act. It is 2026. We have always, and will continue to exist, no matter what. <3