Sunday 26 July 2015

Awareness Raising Day with the General Public

 
Erecting our gazebo on the new by-pass into Torquay

The road into Torbay is finally being dualled (it's only been on the cards for 60 years) and by-passes the notorious bottleneck of the journey between Newton Abbot and the outskirts of Torquay.

A section of the road was opened to the general public for them to see how it was progressing and voluntary organisations and businesses were given the opportunity to have stalls along part of the route and our application to have a stand was accepted, so we were out there and in the faces of the general public.

It was an extremely well attended event, with 3,000 tickets being released to the general public in advance of the viewing of the progress.

We were delighted to be able to have this opportunity to be out and proud - and spoke to many people about the lives of transgender people and as an awareness raising event, we managed to educate many people and the one thing that kept on coming back to us was respect from those people.
 
I think that even as little as 10 ye
ars ago, attending this type of event would have been very difficult, but I do think people are becoming more tolerant and understanding, yes, there are many Neanderthals still out there, but society is changing in its attitude towards transgender people. The battle for acceptance is not yet won, but each minor squirmish that results in greater understanding is a milestone towards that eventual victory.


We would like to express our gratitude to
Galliford Try, the main constructors of the new South Devon Highway, for hosting this event and giving us the opportunity to interact with the public in this manner.

General view of the South Devon Highway which will never be seen again (full of gazebos and pedestrians)

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