As employees were returning from their extended bank holiday weekend, activists were anxiously waiting. Knowing that the staff at the Department of Education would likely do something to disrupt their protest. At half 9, their fears had been realised.
Earlier on the 27th August at 6am, the Trans Kids Deserve Better activist group, unfurled a banner atop the entrance. On it read “We are not pawns for your politics”. A now an iconic slogan that adorned the banner they had previously unfurled earlier in July on top of an NHS office building in Waterloo.
Unfortunately due to the wind and it not being weighed down, the banner got stuck on the brickwork but one of the activists was prevented from climbing up to fix it.
At around 9:00am it was found that staff had locked the front entrance and directed staff to enter the building through a back entrance, the first sign that something was off. Some activists headed to the back of the building to hand out leaflets to those entering. But as they were taping a leaflet to a tree, one comrade ran behind the building to alert the activists that they were taking down the banner.
Immediately everyone had assembled at the front, one of the activists, Grin rushed up the face of the building as the staff, through a window, tried to remove the weights holding the banner in place.
Using the brickwork of the building, Grin climbed up it like a ladder, and once in line with the balcony the banner was flying from, shuffled along underneath to release the banner from the weights and prevent the staff at the Department of Education from taking it.
Once the banner was rescued, Grin and another activist headed down to the ground and was embraced by fellow protestors, relieved.
Their sense of relief was that everyone was safe and that they could keep a sign that had become an iconic symbol of this group and the whole community. A slogan to show that trans kids like themselves weren’t “A pawn” for politicians. And that the government wasn’t going to steal a symbol of their resistance.
You can find video footage of the event here:https://x.com/WhatTheTrans/status/1828352208624120289
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