"We are the Lea-Starkey family. We adopted our two little ones in 2015 when they were aged two and three after a four-year adoption process (just before the government took steps to speed up the process).
I’m in this picture with my son waving a rainbow flag at the Manchester Pride Parade in 2019. This was the first time either myself or my husband had taken part in the parade and our little ones’ first time at Pride. We’d had a break from Manchester Pride since adopting so were excited to be ‘back’ and thrilled to be invited to parade with Proud 2 b Parents which we’d recently joined to meet new friends and to introduce our children to families like ours.
We wanted to give the children a really fun day as well as give them their first full on exposure to LGBT+ life and being a family as part of the community. We embraced the ‘Space’ theme and spent the morning before the parade glittering our faces. After some hesitation and nervousness, especially as we started to parade, the family had a great time both marching and at the festival afterwards. But the best part of the experience were the roars of support the group received from the crowds watching from the sidelines – I don’t think I’d felt so much support as an LGBT+ family before. We were also really pleased to receive a lot of messages afterwards from friends and colleagues who’d seen us en-route.
Our journey has had it’s ups and downs, as with all families - no-one really warns you how difficult it is to bring two new little people into your life at the same time, but I can honestly say we don’t feel like our family is any different to any others and we certainly don’t consider ourselves any different – except perhaps for that little bit of extra sparkle along the way!"
