Thousands attend trans rights rally in Belfast city centre

Thousands of people have attended a trans rights rally in Belfast city centre.

The March for Trans Rights was held on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

Organisers said the recent Supreme Court decision to legally define a woman by biological sex at birth for the purposes of the Equality Act was a huge attack on trans rights.

The ruling has major implications for single-sex spaces in Great Britain, such as female changing rooms and toilets.

The court had been asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's Equality Commission has said it hopes to publish new formal guidance in June in response to the ruling.

The commission said it would "advise all employers and service providers, including councils, to review any policies that the Supreme Court judgment may impact on".

In recent days, Education Minister Paul Givan said he has asked officials to ensure his department is complying with the ruling.

Alexa Moore, the policy, campaigns and communications manager at the Rainbow Project, said trans people have seen a "regression in our rights" across the UK and Northern Ireland.

"We've seen with the puberty blocker ban that was instituted last year and now with the recent Supreme Court judgement on the definition of sex and the Equality Act," she told BBC News NI.

"It's really an attempt in Northern Ireland to roll back rights and protections for trans communities and that's why people are out on the streets today."

She added that the event saw "countless women's organisations and women just generally from the community out in support of trans people".

"We're very clear, trans rights and women's rights are not in opposition, they are linked and you can't have one without the other."

Autumn Hendrix said that trans people paved the way for him to live as a bisexual man.

"It's just so important that we stand up for them."

Tanya De Boer, who attended the event with her family, said the more people who are not trans stand up for this cause "the better, because they are a minority".

She said she brought her kids to show them that "everybody deserves equal rights".

"Individuals that don't identify with their assigned sex at birth should get to live a happy, healthy, inclusive, free life and restricting that is wrong," she added.

"We want to be here to speak up for those people."

A separate anti-LGBT rally took place outside Belfast City Hall at the same time.

A few hundred gathered behind the main stage of the trans rally.

Police kept both protests segregated.