Friends and colleagues, we need your support.
National Transgender Monument - Request for Support
September 2023
During the Manchester Pride of August 2022, one of three significant memorials for the LGBTQ+ community in the Sackville Gardens was set ablaze – that of the National Trans Memorial – a beautiful wooden carving to honour the lives and victims of transphobic hate crimes. The Memorial has been a gathering place for our community and served as a focal point during vigils.
In February 2023, The body of Brianna Ghey was found in a secluded area of the public Culcheth Park in Warrington. Whilst the motive of Brianna’s killing is still to be established, the internet is now rife with speculation of who chose to do this and why they did so. Two 15-year-old suspects remain in detection with a trial delayed until November 2023.
Brianna’s death is a stark reminder of how fragile life is and brings sharp reflection of the violence trans people in the UK are experiencing on a daily basis. There has been a 400% increase in coverage of trans issues in the UK press between 2009 and 2019; anecdotally, members of the Building Equality committees across the UK have seen an exponential increase of such incidences since 2019. Gender-based hate crimes are on a terrifying rise and trans and non-binary legal and political futures in the UK are precarious at best. We have seen a greater incidence of hostility to trans folks in the workplace and in our daily lives out in public.
The National Trans Memorial
The original memorial stood in Sackville Gardens, Manchester, at approximately 3.65m high and was carved in situ by artist Shane Green from a solid piece of sycamore tree. It had stood, proud in place, since 2013.
It has been vital in light of the increasingly uncomfortable and unsafe position that trans and nonbinary folks find themselves in that the LGBTQ+ community have pulled together. Sparkle (a National Transgender Charity that organises the annual Sparkle Weekend, hosted in Sackville Gardens in the heart of Manchester’s Gay Village.) has spent the last year exploring how the Memorial can be replaced by a “lasting and resilient monument that reflects the rich diversity of the trans, non-binary and gender expansive communities”.
Public consultations with transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people, both locally and nationally, were carried out to find the right design concepts to represent the transgender community and inform the artistic brief. The artistic brief then called for artists, designers and creatives to submit their designs. This consultation and brief creation were led by the fantastic Zoe Megins-Davies, they led this work pro-bono through Arup’s Community Engagement.
The concept behind the new design moved from memorial to monument. The priority of the new monument should be on trans+ visibility, acknowledging the resilience, resistance, community, and strength of trans+ people. It should represent the permanence of trans+ communities. Whilst this shift should be embraced, it is vital to recognise the need of a new monument to still serve a commemorative role. There is still a need for the monument to serve as a focal point for reflection and remembrance at events such as Trans Day of Remembrance and for individual use.
Arup, a member of Building Equality are utterly delighted to share that there has been a successful submission! We are in the planning stages of bringing this monument to life and we require technical expertise to ensure the monument is not only safe and secure, but also receives the necessary planning permissions.
We hope that by using the Building Equality network, we can find the right individuals who are able to assist with this important project. Are you, or do you know of, a Civil Engineering, Heritage Consultant, Surveyor and Structural Engineer who could work on a pro-bono basis to support this important project? Please email NationalTransgenderMemorial@arup.com to provide peace and hope to our community and to provide action for this important project.