By Michael Gill, Service Manager

As a gay man it might come as a surprise to say I’d never taken part in a Pride march before so I was feeling nervous about what to expect when I came to this weekend’s celebrations in Liverpool.

I arrived early at the meeting point and got to experience the build up to the march and see all the other groups gradually grow.

This made me think about how we are all stronger together and when we have a unified voice we can affect change on a larger scale.

This is one of the important points about the work we do with Homes for Everyone – a joint group of housing organisations working to promote inclusivity in housing in Merseyside.

The march itself was brilliant and as I walked around the city it was amazing to see all the different generations out supporting Liverpool Pride. I’ve found Liverpool Pride to be about visibility rather than a parade and I enjoyed being there to represent Riverside and our LGBT staff network, Spectrum.

The day was very much a party atmosphere with everyone enjoying themselves but it did make me think how lucky we are to live in city where, as a community, we can feel relatively safe.

I did reflect on the fact that not all LGBT+ communities across the world enjoy the same freedom we do and that there is still work to do towards equality here and abroad to achieve this.

I’ll definitely be taking part in the march next year. I’d encourage all allies and LGBT colleagues to do at least one march so they can have the same experience of being totally accepted by the community they live in, which was fantastic.