ON Wednesday evening Harlow and West Essex Pride held a vigil to mark the funeral of Brianna Ghey, the 16yr old transgender girl who was murdered in Cheshire on February 11th.

The vigil opened with an introduction and welcome from Klara Bow, Co-Chair of the Pride group. 

This was followed by an address from Rev’d Lynn Hurry and a period silent contemplation. Rev’d Lynn said:

“Tonight we gather in sadness and justified anger at the murder of Brianna Ghey and in solidarity with all trans people.

The world is a much darker place without beautiful Brianna in it.

Her death is an absolute tragedy which has highlighted once more the ongoing abuse and discrimination that trans people, young and old, experience.

And, as we all know too well, the final insult is that our government will officially misgender Brianna even in her death .
And that’s an absolute disgrace.

Her friends say she’s been bullied and gang beaten at school for a number of years because she was trans.

And yet despite this, she was someone who brought a lot of laughter into people’s lives. She was clearly beautiful inside and out.
It’s reported that her family described her as a ‘beautiful, witty, hilarious and larger-than-life character who left a lasting impression on all those who met her’.

Her murder comes amidst a wide atmosphere of hostility towards trans people. But let us never believe that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, violence and murder. We will never accept it. And we will continue to protest and speak out against it, just as we will continue to stand alongside in love and support of all the beautiful transgendered people in our world.

Discrimination will never have the last word.
But Love, acceptance, openness, kindness,compassion, inclusivity, creativity, will!
And we must continue to stand proud together!

Let us not lose heart.
For as hard as it is, and for all the negative news we may hear against LGBTQAI++ people, especially against trans people who I believe have the toughest of times, as hard as it is, there is huge support and love for our rainbow community.
There are people out there who do have our backs.
There are people who see us for who we truly are, and after all,
we are being our true selves and being authentic to who we are, and nothing will stop that.

We should all have freedom to have our best life, our most creative and fun-filled life, the most blessed life, and the love filled life………that’s the life that Brianna won’t now get, but let’s hope and pray that for all trans people in future, things will change.

So tonight, we pause and take time to think about Brianna and give thanks for who she really is.