Councillor for Fort William and Ardnamurchan Sarah Fanet speaks at Highland Pride 2023 in Inverness.
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00:00 Well done for being here today, because by being here you are sending a very powerful message
00:08 that there is a lot of love, respect and support out there
00:14 and that the Highlands is a great place to live where you can be who you truly are.
00:20 Well done for just being here.
00:23 I'm Sarah Fannett, I'm Highland Councillor for the ward of Fort William in Atena Machan.
00:29 Beautiful ward, very beautiful.
00:32 We've got Ben Nevis, we've got Lough Linney in Fort William,
00:36 we've got the lighthouse in Adnan Mergen, we've got Kalenko, we've got two mountain resorts.
00:42 But most importantly we have people.
00:46 We have people and there is a lot of love and support out there as well.
00:51 But it's not always visible.
00:54 Let me just share with you a wee story that happened a couple of weeks ago.
00:59 There was an event in Adnan Mergen to celebrate Pride Month
01:05 and some of the people had to travel on the Coran Ferry to get there.
01:11 So the night before I went to the ferry and gave them a rainbow flag
01:18 and I thought they were going to say "Ah, we're busy, we'll do that tomorrow"
01:22 but no, my goodness, I was wrong.
01:25 Within two minutes the flag was up.
01:28 There was a crew member cutting lines and bits of ropes to secure the flag.
01:34 Some other crew members came out of the cabin with their phones taking pictures
01:38 and one of them came to me and said "Oh my God, I wish my gay friends in Glasgow could see this."
01:46 Now think about it, two minutes before I didn't know what the reaction would be.
01:53 And if we don't make visibility happen we will never know that there is a lot of love and support out there.
02:02 And this is exactly what the organisers of this event today have done.
02:07 So before I carry on can we all give them a huge round of applause.
02:12 Well done to all the organisers.
02:16 [Applause]
02:21 I just want to share with you something that happened to me shortly after I was elected.
02:27 I was approached by media, folks in the media, national media some of them
02:33 and they came to me and said "Oh, you're Sarah Fannett, yes, yes.
02:37 What's it like to be a trans councillor?"
02:41 And I said "Well, I don't know, I can't answer that one because I was not elected on that ticket."
02:47 And I can assure you when people come to me, when they email me, when they phone me
02:52 they ask me questions about housing, the roads, schools, how we can help bring in communities together
03:00 they never ask me what is it like to be a trans councillor.
03:04 Now I'm looking at this crowd, there's a lot of young people
03:08 and I know that some of them one day will be on this stage speaking as a Member of Parliament, as a councillor
03:16 and we want to build a world in which they won't be asked
03:22 what is it like to be an LGBTIQ councillor, MP, MSB, Prime Minister
03:29 because it will be normal.
03:31 Visibility brings normality without having to think about it.
03:36 It restores our humanity.
03:39 So let's work together to make more of this happen, to create more visibility.
03:46 It can be done, let's work on this together.
03:49 Have a great day all of you and let's believe in ourselves.
03:54 We can do it! Bye bye!
03:57 (audience cheering)