Wearing our roundel with pride

Within transport, especially Transport for London (TfL), it is custom to celebrate and commemorate with a badge for staff to wear. Over the past few years, roundels in the colours of LGBT+ pride flags have been displayed in stations across the network. These were initially created by Martyn Loukes, a previous leader of OUTbound (TfL’s LGBT+ colleague network group) and with the support of the TfL design team.  

In 2019, the OUTbound chair at the time, Kyle Monk, commissioned three roundel designs to be made into pin badges for staff to wear. The badges included a Transgender, Bisexual and Philadelphia pride flag designs. The Philadelphia pride flag, launched in 2017, added black and brown to the rainbow pride flag, to represent people of colour in the LGBT+ community. These badges were popular, with an overwhelming demand from staff at the time.

At the same time, OUTbound launched an LGBT+ community and ally rainbow staff lanyard. I wore mine with the pride pin badges attached; colleagues would frequently ask me where they could get a pride pin badge. Since then, I have been researching the possibility of producing new pride roundel pin badges for staff members at TfL.

In 2022, I was inspired to produce new pride pin badges, with life in London getting back to a ‘new normal’ post Covid-19 lockdowns. The production of the badges was self-funded, with all the proceeds being donated to LGBT+ charities. Many of these charities had struggled with loss of donations at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic.  

With the support of the OUTbound senior leadership, both past and present, we approached TfL Design team. Two designs were agreed on: a badge with a pride roundel and a badge commemorating 50 years of Pride in London.

The pride badges were launched via email, and a social network service for colleagues at TfL. I was so happy that within hours of being announced, we had hundreds of orders from colleagues. I was struck by the number of people who were excited to wear something which showed pride, whether part of the LGBT+ community or an ally. I received so many messages of support, appreciation, and enthusiasm. These messages have only inspired me to continue to develop new designs.

So far over £5,000 has been raised and donated to four LGBT+ charities. It goes to show the power of both pride and our generous community and allies. We presented the donations to the charities in style with extra-large cheques.

We recently added the enamel pin badge with a roundel, commemorating 50 years of LGBT+ Pride in London, to our collection at London Transport Museum.