LGBTQ community protests plans to ‘dismantle’ gender clinic

Hundreds of members of the LGBTQ+ community protested against a group planning to ‘brick up’ the doors of a gender clinic in Scotland.

Members of the Scottish Family Party and the LGBTQ+ community came face to face on Saturday afternoon (11 March) as they clashed over access to abortion and healthcare for trans people.

Counter-protesters waved Pride flags and joined Cabaret Against The Hate Speech, an anti-fascist group using music, song and dance to counter hate speech in Scotland.

Images and footage shared on social media were shown Cabaret against hate speech Frankie Vallis sing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and the contestants take turns dancing in the middle of the crowd.

A counter-protester, Ainsley Rogers, told PinkNews the atmosphere was “peaceful and fun to celebrate community and support”.

“The atmosphere was incredible — full of love and positivity!” she said.

A second participant similarly described the atmosphere of the counter-protest as “uplifting and full of joy and love”.

Beth Douglas told PinkNews: “Sandyford is not just a gender clinic, it is a sexual health service, it provides contraception, abortion-related health care and runs support services for sexual assault survivors.

“Sandyford is an incredibly important building for many Scots and that is exactly why so many people have come today to passionately defend it and demand buffer zones.”

Earlier this month while a Livestream EventNiall Fraser has told Richard Lucas, a member of the Scottish Family Party, that the group plans to “wall up” Glasgow’s Sandyford Clinic to prevent people from accessing its services.

“The plan is to wall the building up, just wall it up. Because how do we prevent children from entering the building? Well, we have to block the entrance, so we’re going to wall it up. Physically, metaphorically, whatever you want to say, we’re going to block people from getting into the building,” he said.

The Sandyford Place Clinic is an integrated sexual and reproductive health service run by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC).

In addition to a gender clinic, Sandyford offers a range of services including STI testing, contraception, abortion, sexual assault and rape support.

In a Facebook post shared on March 4, the faction described the clinic as providing “harmful ideologically motivated ‘treatments’ to children” and said it would “symbolically wall it up” to express its “outrage at the children’s well-being.” show is sacrificed to fashionable ideology”.

A photo shared on social media shows the group standing outside the clinic’s doors, with mock bricks blocking the entrance and a sign that reads, “Stop experimenting on children.”