Gay Pride 2020: the global LGBT community is online

Text by: RFI Follow

Half a century after the first Gay Pride in New York, the global LGBT community was essentially online this Saturday, June 27, 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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These are just a few small demonstrations that marked the anniversary of New York's first Gay Pride, now fifty years ago, but most of it has been gathered under the label of Global Pride, a virtual demonstration. London Pride, one of the main events on the gay pride calendar, paid the price. Only a small group of fifteen people, including Peter Tatchell, a veteran of the movement, carefully masked in rainbow colors, still found themselves on the streets of the British capital to celebrate the creation there are 50 years old, from the London Gay Liberation Front.

"  We want to make this event an event for the rights of the LGBT community  ", far from the commercial excesses of the holiday, insisted the 68-year-old activist. Some demonstrations were broadcast on a giant screen in Piccadilly Square, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, tweeted his support. In Berlin, police estimated that some 3,500 people marched in temperatures close to 30 degrees. And German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted support for LGBT people around the world: "  Be proud of yourself ! It doesn't matter who you love, it doesn't matter where you live  . ”

Light version in Vienna

In Vienna, some 200 cars and motorcycles decorated with rainbow banners or inflatable unicorns paraded. According to the organizers, around 5,000 spectators greeted the procession, a lighter version of the annual parade which usually brings together several hundred thousand people.

Online, the global event Global Pride, whose slogan was "Exist, persist, resist" had started at 5:00 UT in London. In the United States, former President Barack Obama had sent a video message paying tribute to customers of the New York bar Stonewall Inn who rebelled in 1969 against yet another police raid, de facto launching the contemporary rights movement homosexuals. "  With the movement they launched and dozens of years of work that followed, the marriage between people of the same sex became legal in the country (the United Uniss, ed) there five years and not later this month the Supreme Court decided that an employer could not discriminate against LGBTQ employees  , "he said.

" Moving  " celebration 

Democratic November presidential candidate Joe Biden also referred to the Supreme Court, saying the celebration was "  particularly moving this year  ." In Argentina, public buildings and monuments were to be lit in the colors of the rainbow, and activists organized a week of online celebrations, although Gay Pride is usually celebrated in November in this country. Gay activists in Mexico have called for justice against hate crimes during a "  digital march  ". "  Today, we think of lesbians, gays, transvestites, transsexuals, transgender and intersex people murdered because of their identity or their sexual orientation,  " said the organizers of the "  42nd LGBTTTI, Digital Pride March  ".

“  Once every three days last year, one person was killed. Only 10% of these murders were considered as such, investigated and punished as hate crimes  , "added the organizers in a statement. The latter invited participants to register to walk, sing or dance in their homes and post the images on Instagram or TikTok under the hashtag #ElOrgulloPermance.

However, some 200 people walked along Reforma, the main avenue in Mexico City, breaking the containment imposed by the pandemic, which in this country of 127 million inhabitants caused the death of nearly 25,800 people and contaminated more than 208,000 others.

( with AFP )

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