The LGBT Travellers fundraising for survival

Traveller Pride was formed in 2019 by a showman called Tyler Hatwell who wanted to take a group of Travellers to Pride in London. He got a small grant which paid for some matching T-shirts, a big banner (which we still have) and transport costs for a handful of people to come to the march and meet.

After the event, which saw 20 travellers proudly marching through the streets of the capital, he realised that this had some momentum. It had been hard to get people together, but now that they were, they wanted to keep in touch, and there was obviously so much scope to do more for the same community. Gradually from that we became a bit of an informal collective, then in 2021 we incorporated as a CIC to make it a bit easier to stay consistent and so that when all of the original members have moved on, there can still be a Traveller Pride doing the same work.

As for what exactly we do: we still do Prides and fairs the same as that first one. We've taken groups to Manchester, Brighton Trans Pride, Pride in London, Trans Pride Leeds and more. At each event we coordinate and pay for as much of people's transport costs as we can afford. We also run a regular social afternoon in London which is a lot more low-key and calm. It’s hosted at the LGBTQ Community Centre in Blackfriars, which was an absolute lifeline for me for the longest time and is where I met a lot of people who are now my very good friends. We have a (VERY ACTIVE) WhatsApp group that anyone who is LGBT of any kind and Traveller of any kind can join, which is where we tend to organise things that are coming up and generally just all keep in touch - there's about thirty people in it, so it feels like a big family group chat in tone (assuming you get on with your family).

We also try to get opportunities for LGBT Travellers - This year we have had a show of art in Queer Britain, and we're going to do another one next year in the Folklore Centre in Todmorden. For the last three years we have sent a couple of people to give talks at the Atchin Tan stage at Glastonbury. We try to make sure there is a bit of Traveller representation at things for the Queer community and, in turn, that at Traveller community events, there is a little space to hear LGBT people.

On top of this, we remotely run a binder scheme (giving brand new, unused, binders to people who need them, for free) and a lending library of both LGBT and Traveller topics which includes some increasingly rare or hard-to-get books. People can ask us for a book from the library, and we can send it out to you, along with return postage so you can just drop it in a post box - if you ask, we can even send things in discreet covers, if you don't want to be outed to the people you live with.

We do semi-regular moraleposts where we send things like stickers, Christmas cards, wildflower seeds, postcards etc to people who might not be able to stay in touch otherwise, but who want to have a morale boost and to know they're not alone.

Although right now in the UK we are the only organisation doing this work, we aren't the first. A couple of years before we started, a young man named Henry Chapman started up an initiative that is, effectively, what we do - trying to unite and buoy up LGBT Gypsies and Travellers - which ended with his death in January 2019. So we're hugely in his debt.

When we use the term Traveller, we use it as inclusively as possible. Though there are differences between groups like Romany Gypsies, Travellers, Boaters, Showmen and more, we believe there is enough shared experience, including discrimination, to make us effective allies for one another and to mean we’re often fighting the exact same battle.

There is a trope that all Travellers are homophobic/transphobic which we strongly reject. It can be difficult to come from some more traditional backgrounds among Travellers but there is enough variation within the groups to make this stereotype meaningless. As an organisation, we don’t exist because Travellers are bad people, we exist because there’s currently not a space for us at all. This is more because until recently Traveller activism has been focussed on the essentials of survival (a place to stay, access to sanitation) or very base human demands (education etc.) and it is only now that we have wanted to shine light on the diversity within our communities.

In my experience a lot of LGBT institutions are casually racist towards Gypsies and Travellers, and they often justify that racism with more racism. They use tropes like, ‘Travellers are homophobic’ to make the argument that they shouldn't be expected to have Travellers in their midst. Which results in a lot of us feeling just unwelcome in LGBT spaces, or like we have to hide who we are and be ashamed (or at least, be quiet). A few years ago we were even turned away by a local queer venue, in the same way as pubs that will insist they're closing or all booked up. To experience that from an LGBT venue really felt like a kick in the teeth, especially from a place that had pretentious "everyone welcome!" branding strewn about.

It’s for these reasons and so many more that I’m proud that Traveller Pride exists. When people come to our meetings they will often say “Oh, I've never met another one like me!” Whether that is someone who has never been out in the queer community before at all, or someone who has been out for decades but has just never in that time knowingly met another LGBT Traveller.

Earlier this year I started a fundraiser to help keep Traveller Pride going. The truth is we have big plans and shallow pockets and so much of the expansive work we do is based on the goodwill, free labour and investment of personal cash of a small group of volunteers.

With more funding, we really hope to be more consistent in our work. We want to be able to afford to expand the library and post books out more often, as well as to extend the binder scheme, with a tiny grants scheme because, what if you don't need a binder? It makes more sense for us to give you fifty quid, to get what you need, than to try to keep stock of everything that anyone might want! We want to be able to pay for people's transport to get to events more often, so that more people who would never be able to afford it on their own can go to things like Pride, and to be able to guarantee to them that they won't have to go alone, because there will be a dozen of us there with them. We used to have a helpline- a listening service, basically, where you could ring up and speak to a trained therapist who was themselves both LGBT and Traveller, about anything- and we want to restart that, which would mean training and retaining people who could do that work.

Times are tough, everything is expensive and nothing is getting any easier but, this Christmas, if you do have anything to spare please help us keep going in the new year and expanding our support to all members of our community. You can find our gofundme here or alternatively donate directly through Paypal on our website.

Percy Henderson is an executive member of Traveller Pride.

As told to Ben Smoke.

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