A Picture of Brianna Ghey

The LGBTQ+ Charity Salford Pride is to hold a vigil at 6pm today (February 14) at Pendleton Gateway to honour Brianna Ghey, the transgender girl who was killed over the weekend in Warrington.

Salford Pride is one of many charities to organise vigils across the country following the teenager’s death.

It is also offering a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, especially those under the transgender umbrella term, to talk about how this incident has affected them.

“As it is LGBTQ+ History Month we are running a support group every week,” said Matty Johnson, head of social media for Salford Pride. “We thought it would be really important to open that and make aware to the trans community that we have these spaces available

“We want to have a space where we can reflect and talk about how we’re feeling.”

A poster for the support group being held by Salford Pride

Many transgender activists have offered their support towards Brianna’s family across social media, with a GoFundMe page for her family having raised over £65,000 on the first day it went live.

She has been described as a “sweet angel” and a “beautiful girl” in tributes left across social media in the hours after the incident as several charities, including LGBTQ+ Rights group Stonewall, provided spaces to offer tributes.

Cheshire Police urged anyone with information to come forward, a sentiment Stonewall shared in a tweet:

Matty said: “It’s made us all see what we’ve been seeing, but for people who aren’t in the queer community it’s hopefully going to make them rethink about how we’re portraying trans people within media and what we need to do to support our trans youth, especially because they need a lot more support than they’re getting at the moment.

“One of the major things is that we need to listen to our trans youth. The system has failed another young person.”

 

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