Pride Parade: When City Streets Turn Bold And Colourful

When you see tens of thousands of people waving colourful flags on their city streets, you forget the fear, hate and self-loathing constantly being fought. On this day, you witness people from all walks of life parading their pride, their sexuality—each person is a story, unique and telling.

The past decade has given the LGBT community many grounds to strengthen their identity. While parts of the world are going all guns blazing to silence the rights of gay people and marking them as criminal offenders, there are others willing to open doors.

In 2008, the California Supreme Court overturned the one-man, one-woman marriage law to legalise gay marriages. In 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to publicly support the rights of the LGBT community to marry. 2015 saw the gay community of Mozambique succeed in their campaign to get homosexuality decriminalised. In the same year, Nepal joined just a handful of other countries in recognising a third gender on their passports.

Kate Brown was sworn in as governor or Oregon in 2016, making her the highest-ranked LGBT person to be elected to office in America. And this year, January 31 to be precise, thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted for ‘sexual offenses’ in Britain, were pardoned under a new policing law.

If this isn’t enough, the words of interior minister of Colombia, Juan Fernando Cristo, will definitely get you to the streets: “Equality is unstoppable and equality will also come to Colombia.”

Equality must come to each country. And despite the hatred, there is hope. If the Stonewall Riots of 1969, that gave birth to first ever gay march just a year later, are any indication, change is only inevitable when remarkable moments of Pride take place.