My train pulled up at the Manchester Piccadilly platform and suddenly I was staring at what is apparently the largest Pride flag in the UK. Avanti’s ‘Progress Train’ is emblazoned with the latest iteration of the ‘Progress Pride’ flag – which dutifully incorporates ethnic minorities, transgender people and STD-sufferers.

The more a company chooses to focus on its social values, the more sceptical you should be of its performance

As a social conservative, it is strange to have to take a journey on a train which promotes such a contested ideological outlook – especially when that outlook is being challenged by the country at large. This year the British Supreme Court reaffirmed that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, vindicating those of us who have long been sceptical of the idea of transition. Even the Labour government has issued an indefinite ban on puberty blockers. 

The original Pride flag was perhaps once a legitimate expression of gay people’s desire for non-discrimination. But today we are 60 years on from homosexuality’s decriminalisation and more than a decade on from the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The insistence that sexual minorities still........

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