On June 27, 2023, Paul Golding, leader of the far-right Britain First group, tweeted a photograph of a young boy and girl walking past four naked men who were standing next to bicycles. In Golding's caption, he wrote, "And lefties wonder why I am against all this LGBT 'Pride' crap? I am not daft. I can see where this is leading."
And lefties wonder why I am against all this LGBT 'Pride' crap?
I am not daft. I can see where this is leading. pic.twitter.com/9irxoI0rl9— Paul Golding (@GoldingBF) June 27, 2023
We also found several other postings of the picture, also from June 2023. At least one tweet claimed that the photograph had been captured during a Seattle Pride event that reportedly included some nude men, a subject that we comprehensively reported about in a different article.
From everything we could find, yes, this photograph really did show children walking past at least four naked men (their genitalia have been blurred in the tweet). In fact, there were likely many more naked men and women just outside of the frame.
As for the truth about the setting of the picture, however, it was captured at the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) in London and not at a specific Pride event. The event occurred on June 10, 2017.
A thorough search of Flickr.com led us to a helpful and uncensored photograph that was uploaded on June 12, 2017. The picture appeared to show the same man who was wearing a colorful headband and leis in the photograph that Golding had tweeted.
According to the WNBR London Facebook page, the event's main purpose is to "demonstrate the vulnerability of cyclists" as "a protest against car culture."
A search of the WNBR London Facebook page's recent posts and photographs did not appear to show any content specifically related to Pride month. The only reference that we found on the page about LGBTQ+ issues was the fact that one of the page's managers apparently chose to like a separate page named Pride Ride London. The Pride Ride London page showed pictures of clothed bicyclists who had participated in apparently unrelated past biking events.
