LGBT Pride in Three Countries
by Alison Walkley
Taking a look at LGBT Pride events in different countries can give us a sense of global community as we learn how people around the world celebrate Pride. Read on to experience Pride in Ireland, Canada, and Iceland.
Dublin LGBTQ Pride Festival, Ireland June 13–21, 2008
The Dublin Pride Festival has been around less than two years, but the Pride Parade will be celebrating its twenty-fifth year this June. Run by the nonprofit Dublin Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Pride Ltd, this year the group aims to increase awareness of the lack of partnership rights in the LGBTQ community.
From June 13 to June 21, Dublin will play host to LGBT people in Ireland and beyond, their final day marking the anniversary of New York’s Stonewall riots. The event will be based on three core values, as the website lists: Celebrate Diversity, Inclusiveness and Increased Visibility & Mutual Respect.
In that one week, participants and visitors can enjoy days filled with sports activities, workshops, community street festivals, and remembrance ceremonies; the nights offer clubs, poetry readings, film showings, and prize-awarding quizzes among others. Check the website for a full agenda.
The parade itself will be on June 21. More than 5,000 people are expected to turn up, topping last year’s numbers.
Pride London, Ontario, Canada July 17–27, 2008
This year’s ten days of events are sure to bring in thousands from all around Canada. July 17 features the Pride Art Show, July 18 a Pride flag-raising ceremony. According to Pride London’s website, “Last year during the London’s Pride festival, the Canadian flag flapping in front of the building was joined by the rainbow flag, a symbol of gay and lesbian pride. In 1995, then-Mayor Dianne Haskett refused to issue a proclamation recognizing Pride, a decision later found to be discriminatory by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Last year, all but five members of council voted in favour of flying the flag during the London's Pride Festival.”
The Pride Family Picnic will take place on July 20 and Pride Literary Night on July 22. A live theatre production by the Verve of Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra by Michel Tremblay, will be on the evenings of July 24 and 25. The play involves two intersecting monologues that “explore the sacred and the profane,” as the website attests. “The play crosscuts the lives of Manon, a devout nun-like woman, and Sandra a sex-obsessed drag queen. When the curtain falls, you decide who is truly sacred and who is profane.”
The annual Miss Pride London Pageant will be on July 25, with a slew of music concerts held the next day.
The famous parade will take place the final day, July 27.
Reykjavik Gay Pride, Iceland August 7–10, 2008
Iceland’s LGBT population knows how to party. The Committee for Gay Pride in Reykjavik has been organizing festivities, a parade, and concerts every summer since 1999. According to its website, Gay Pride is “attended by over fifty thousand people—lesbians and gay men, friends, relatives, fellow citizens and numerous foreign visitors—showing solidarity with the gay cause on the second weekend of August.”
To be sure, LGBT Icelanders have much to be proud of after a long struggle to secure their rights. Since 1978, the community has evolved from an invisible minority to an established group with social and legal rights comparable to many other places in the world.
On Thursday, August 7, 2008, Reykjavik Pride opens at the Q-bar’s Pride Club followed by music from Copenhagen native Martin Knudsen at Restaurant Jómfruin. The international visual art show Fellow Travelers will open at 4 p.m. before the official Opening Ceremony at 8, held at the University of Iceland Movie Theatre. Guests will enjoy a Beerburst Party before calling it a day.
The following day’s activities begin at noon with another performance by Knudsen at Jómfruin. Carole Pope will perform at Club Organ before two separate dance parties for men and women; the former at Organ, the latter at Q-Bar.
Saturday, August 9 is the “Gay Parade,” beginning at 2 p.m., ending at the old city center. The end of the afternoon brings an outdoor concert to happy Priders, followed by a raucous night show at Organ. There will be a slew of Pride dances at clubs NASA, Organ, and Q-Bar at midnight.
Sunday marks the end of 2008 Pride for Iceland. Pride Club at Q-Bar will open at 11, and a “T-Party” will be the place to be from 3 p.m. until 1 a.m. the following morning.
