The Foyle Pride festival is a grassroots celebratory protest whose core aim is to represent the LGBT+ community in the Derry City & Strabane District Council (DCSDC) area and across the North West, while campaigning in solidarity with the global LGBT+ community. In order to achieve this aim two of the enshrined goals within the Foyle Pride constitution are:

1) To increase the visibility of the Derry LGBTQ community within the local, national and international community.

2) To seek out those who are on the fringes and take practical, concrete steps to ensure their inclusion in society.

These Constitutional goals are currently under threat from the illegitimate Foyle Pride 2021 committee, who are trying to impose a “Membership” to register members of the LGBTQIA+ community as members of Foyle Pride. This proposed membership comes with voting rights, so the only “members” of Foyle Pride can vote on changes to the direction of Foyle Pride, its constitution and the election of its committee.

As members of the LGBTQIA+ community we are members of Pride already simply because we are LGBTQIA+ as is stated in the Foyle Pride constitution (the document the governs the management of Pride). This constitution was created 10th April 2010 and accepted by Foyle Pride Committee 2016 at AGM on 8th December 2015. The members of Foyle Pride is outlined in Article 6 of this document and is as follows:

6. Membership

6.1 Any member of the LGBTQ community will be entitled to become a member of the organization. Membership will also be given to any individual who is willing to promote the aims of the Association.

6.2 All members must agree to the terms set put in this document.

6.3 All members are to respect the confidentiality of meetings and other members. Failure to do so will result in immediate expulsion from the Association and/or removal from the online community.

This “membership” would strip the community of this inalienable right and force us to become registered"members" to participate in any real way. As this membership requests sensitive information (that consitutionally it does not have the right to, ie sexual orientation, Gender Identity, address etc), This of course will silence the majority of the voices in our community, especially those members of our community who are not out and/or who are on the finges of our community in direct contradiction to the aims of Foyle Pride. This will leave Pride in the hands of a select few who they themselves will deem who can and cannot have a say in future committee elections and any changes to the governance of Pride.

By signing this petition, you the members of the LGBTQ+ community and our allies, are demanding of the Foyle Pride 2021 committee to stop the enforcement of this unconstitutional, discrimarty, and damaging implementation of this “Membership” application as we as members of the LGBTQ+ community are already members in accordance with the current constitution. After all "Membership" forms were not required at Stonewall, and they are not required at Foyle Pride. #savefoylepride