Pride rainbows taken off police cars after court ruling

A police force has agreed to remove all Pride rainbows and transgender livery from its vehicles following a landmark High Court ruling.

Northumbria Police has also told its officers and staff they cannot attend a Gay Pride march in uniform this weekend, in a move that could set a precedent for other forces.

Northumbria was taken to court by a gender-critical lesbian who said it was wrong for officers to take part in events that promoted gender ideology.

The move comes after Linzi Smith, 34, a gender-critical lesbian from Newcastle, brought a case against Northumbria Constabulary, arguing that it had been wrong to allow uniformed officers to actively participate in an event that promoted gender ideology and was supported by transgender activists.

In his ruling, the judge, Mr Justice Linden, said it was important that police forces were not perceived as taking sides in contentious social debates.

Ffs. Police officers want to support a gay pride event, and a Lesbian woman became so offended by that she raised a court case against them. One that I cannot believe was upheld.

And as for the judge saying police attending means they're "choosing sides"... fucking hell. It's a Pride event. The "sides" are the LGBT community and those that hate them. It is an offence under the Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against LGBT people, so the police very much should be on one side, and they broadly were.

What the hell was this judge thinking? Why are TERFs so emboldened here?

Imagine telling someone this a few decades ago:

"Yeah the police want to support a LGBT pride event and..."

"Wait they what? They want to support it? Not shut it down?"

"...yeah, support and attend. Anyway the court ruled against it."

"Lobbying and moral panic from anti-LGBT clergymen, I suppose?"

"Nah, a small group of lesbians."

You can't make this shit up. Imagine hating trans people so much that you're willing to turn against the whole LGBT Pride movement, while being in a same sex relationship. The mind reels.

- What are you babbling about?
  Pride is about capitalism. Nothing more.
  WAH! I'm LGBT, you have to do as I say else you're discriminating against me and that's like, illegal and stuff, and I'll use the police as my personal army against you to get revenge.
  Is everything okay at home?
  There's the projection. This has nothing to do with trans people. Twisting unrelated actions to be another thing is typical of schizophrenia and/or psychosis.
  Slice of life from inside the glass house apparently. Put the stone down please.
The "sides" are the LGBT community and those that hate them.
This is wrong. The person who took Northumbria Police to court was a lesbian and hence a member of the LGBT community. It doesn't make sense for the "sides" to include the LGBT community.
You're conflating the gender supporting (as oppose to gender critical) community and the LGBT community.
- You'll never guess what the 'T' in LGBT stands for...
  This person is absolutely standing against the LGBT community. She is actively seeking to drive a wedge between LGBT communities and the police, making the entire community less safe in the process, as well as trying to divide people in regards to LGBT issues.
  She will happily cut off her nose to spite her face, if it means harming trans people.
  And being part of a community doesn't make you immune from being against the community. There's plenty of anti-immigration immigrants, there's homophobic/transphobic/biphobic people in the LGBT community, there were people from colonies who saw their own colonies as barbaric and welcomed white masters, there were Jews in Germany who hated Jews and happily supported Nazis, there are working class people who are disdainful of working class culture.
- I don't understand why this is downvoted so much. This is the correct response.
  Oh noes, here's an opinion that my psychiatrist wouldn't say to my face, therefore it should be downvoted.

From the article:

The move comes after Linzi Smith, 34, a gender-critical lesbian from Newcastle, brought a case against Northumbria Constabulary, arguing that it had been wrong to allow uniformed officers to actively participate in an event that promoted gender ideology and was supported by transgender activists.

From the BBC:

People who filled out the 2021 census in England and Wales were asked: "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?" According to the ONS, 262,000 people - around 0.5% of the population - answered "no".

The ONS states that there are 60,238,000 total people in England and Wales.

Gender critical people, almost always cis women, can go to hell. They go out of their way to try (and lately succeed) to suppress any support for trans people and to exclude trans women from any space that is oriented for women. They fear monger, calling us perverts and degenerates that want to prey on poor, defenseless, innocent women.

Anyone who advocates for the disenfranchisement of trans people is an objectively shit person. We just want to live our lives and not be singled out for discrimination.

There are actually more transphobic men than women but the "movement" fronts cis women so they can pull the "muh oppressed" line.
poor, defenseless, innocent women
Not doing yourself any favours with this kind of sarcastic comment.
Anyone who advocates for the disenfranchisement of trans people
I've never seen anybody argue that trans people should be denied the right to vote. Including in this article.

It's honestly getting depressing here in the UK the vast majority of people are good honest open minded people, but for some reason single bigoted people keep being allowed to make the place worse in the name of 'free speech' the results going to be the police staying away to be impartial and a bunch of reform voting trogladites causing trouble in the name of free speech.

Never mind the comments here on Lemmy, but you really need a hazmat suit to enter the comments on that article. Over 1400 of them, each somehow a different type of phobic. Living up to the nickname "TERF Island".

This is the Torygraph, don't read the comments unless you want to do psyc damage to yourself.

I’m not sure it was the wisest idea to put the rainbows on the vehicles in the first place. Is someone panicking, with visual or cognitive impairment, at night, going to instantly recognise it?

I've seen loads of police vans like this. It's only part of the van and they're just as recognisable as before IMO.
A sticker isn't going to hide a full on cop car. Like imagine you're in an emergency, you see a black and white car that has all the markings of a cop car, but it has a rainbow sticker, are you going to ignore it because of a 2x3 sticker?
Your point is stupid and invalid.
- Well, seeing as police vehicles aren’t black and white…..
  And if you took a look at the picture, it replaces the battenberg on the back half of the van, with a logo that highlights the letters BT, so it looks a bit like a telecoms van.

As always, fuck you, UK

Instantly jumping to xenophobia over one seemingly bigoted judge seems a bit far. I doubt bigotry is unheard of wherever you're from.
E: Germany. Good thing there's no bigotry to be found there.
- this is not what xenophobia is. thread starter is out of pocket, but the problem isn't xenophobia. xenophobia would be if the thread starter said "every brit is a terf." the thread starter did appropriately lay the blame at the feet of the imperial state, the UK. i take issue with "always" if you are approaching a situation with the attitude of something is always, you are giving up on the possibility of fixing it.
- I am actually from there, but was able to fuck off to mainland EU shortly before Brexit. So there' that...
- Has the UK tried not treating trans people like shit?
Here's the article again.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/18/pride-rainbows-removed-police-cars-court-ruling/
Northumbria was taken to court by a gender-critical lesbian who said it was wrong for officers to take part in events that promoted gender ideology
Maybe try reading? Just a thought...
- The real gender ideology are traditional gender roles and the notion that gender is determined by sex.
- I'm not sure what point you feel you've made?
- Nah, still fuck the U.K.

UK turning into Airstrip One at record speed.

Fuck the UK, you should be doing the opposite.

A very US-brained comment.
I've attended multiple pride events/marches and I've been very glad of police presence. Every year there's at least one bigot who tries to start a fight with someone on a march, and the police quickly put an end to it.
A couple of years ago a man started shouting slurs then ran to attack another man immediately ahead of me (who had shouted back at the guy hurling abuse). A policeman appeared seemingly out of nowhere, sprinting, slide-tackling, then cuffing the aggressor, all before he could even land a punch on someone.
Do you want to get rid of that protection? Would you rather it be a free-for-all where homophobes can attend and attack with impunity? Would you rather the attendee have been assaulted?
Even aside from that, it is extremely stupid to want to drive a wedge between police and LGBT people. That will just make LGBT people less likely to seek help from police if they've been the victim of something, and further emboldens bigots in attacking LGBT people. Why wouldn't you, if you knew they'd never go to the police about it?
We are not the USA. Our police forces are not US police forces. The UK has many problems, but we are fortunate in having a relatively progressive, left-leaning police force (probably due to how much the Tories fucked them over with cuts).
- Left leaning police is an oxymoron

its almost like the police needs to be neutral.

Are you fucking dense?
- do you know what your saying.