#europride 2022

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

Europride 2022 Valetta, Malta

https://instagram.com/beatbianca

[alexknight5]

Understanding a Photograph

History of Pride UK

1972 London Pride (Peter Tatchell)

In 1972, London had its first pride parade, inspired by the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. The Stonewall riots started a huge spark in protests around the world, and moved the fight for rights for the gay community into the public eye. This pride parade kicked off pride parades around the UK and led to the parades we have today. It was organised by the Gay Liberation Front, the first LGBT human rights movement of the UK. London pride was organised ‘to combat the invisibility and denigration of the queer community’ (Peter Tatchell, 2019). This pride helped to push LGBT+ rights into the view of the British public. It was attended by around 700 people (Peter Tatchell, 2019) with many people not attending due to fears of being arrested.

London Pride: 1980’s (Bishopsgate Institute)

Throughout the 1980’s, gay pride began to grow, with the attendance in 1983 being around 2000 (LGBT Archive, 2023), the biggest pride parade yet. The 80s was a difficult period for the LGBTQ community, with the spread of the HIV virus, and Section 28 being enforced. The spread of the HIV virus led to some gay rights being pushed backwards. In 1983, gay men were stopped from giving blood (NCS, 2024). In 1988, Section 28 was introduced. This law prevented local councils and authorities from promoting or supporting the LGBTQ community. Section 28 wasn’t repealed until 2003 (NCS, 2024). Despite these negative impacts to the community, there were some positive improvements. In 1989, Eastenders showed the first same sex kiss on a UK primetime soap opera, and Sir Ian McKellen came out on BBC Radio 3 (NCS, 2024).

London Pride: 1990s (Bishopsgate Institute)

Through the 90s, pride became more consistent and bigger. In 1992, London hosted the first Europride, with over 100,000 people attending. (EPOA, 2022). Pride continued to grow throughout the 90s, with ‘people coming from across the country’ (Rose Staveley-Wadham, 2022)

 

Bibliography

- Tatchell,P (2019), 1972 London Pride, Available at https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/memories-of-britains-first-lgbt-pride-in-1972/ (Accessed 09/03/24)

- LGBT Archive (2023), London Pride Year by Year, Available at: https://lgbthistoryuk.org/wiki/London_Pride (Accessed 20/03/24)

- NCS (2024), LGBTQ+ History by the Decades, Available at https://wearencs.com/blog/lgbtq-history-decades-1980s (Accessed 01/04/24)

- EPOA (2022), Celebrating 30 Years of Europride this June, Available at https://www.epoa.eu/celebrating-30-years-of-europride-this-june/ (Accessed 01/04/24)

- Rose Staveley-Wadham (2022), Celebrating The First 20 Years of Pride in The United Kingdom, Available at https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2022/06/01/first-20-years-of-pride-in-the-united-kingdom/ (Accessed 01/04/24)

Image List

- Tatchell,P (2019), 1972 London Pride, Available at https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/memories-of-britains-first-lgbt-pride-in-1972/ (Accessed 09/03/24)

- Bishopsgate Institute, London Pride: 1980s, Available at https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/collections/london-pride-1980s (Accessed 09/03/24)

- Bishopsgate Institute, London Pride: 1990s, Available at https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/collections/london-pride-1990s (Accessed 09/03/24)

- Guest, K (2016), 2008 Gay Pride Parade, Regents Street, Available at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/therainbowlist/the-independent-on-sunday-rainbow-list-sixteen-years-on-the-pioneering-work-continues-a6937916.html (Accessed 09/03/24)

- Sky News (2023), London Pride Parade 2023, Available at https://news.sky.com/story/london-pride-parade-2023-time-and-date-exact-route-and-where-to-watch-it-12907404 (Accessed 09/03/24)

[mariacallous]

Belgrade Pride condemned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s statement that he will not sign the law permitting same sex unions in Serbia, nor will such a law be adopted while he is President.

Belgrade Pride said in press release that “the President has no right to divide and discriminate against citizens based on his personal opinion”.

“Laws are passed on the basis of the personal affinities of politicians in autocratic and dictatorial regimes, and President Vucic claims that Serbia is not like that,” Belgrade Pride said on Sunday evening.

“We remind the President that the adoption of the Law on Same-Sex Unions is an international obligation of Serbia that it is included in the action plans of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, and that the government has already promised the adoption of the Law several times,” it added.

In an interview for Pink Television on Sunday, Vucic said that he would not allow a law on same sex unions to be adopted in Serbia.

“While I am President, I will not sign any law or anything where it will be possible to have a third gender that is not male or female … as I was the one who, even though there is an initiative, even though [Prime Minister] Ana [Brnabic] is fighting for it, I asked her not to sign [the law on] same-sex marriages and so on while I am the President,” Vucic said.

“I told her that, I am the one who is to blame and when those from the European Union attack us because of that, great, attack me, don’t blame Ana Brnabic, she stands for it, I am the one who didn’t allow it”, he added.

For a law to be published in the Official Gazette and come into force, the President issues a decree on the promulgation of the law after parliament has adopted it.

Belgrade Pride has said that the position of the LGBT community in Serbia “has drastically worsened in the last year, and as a result of the negative campaign which was conducted due to the holding of last year’s EuroPride, in which the President of Serbia also participated”.

In September 2022, EuroPride in Belgrade was held on a very limited scale after the government banned the planned march, citing a “risk of violence” after right-wing anti-LGBT groups said they would also march through the capital on the same day. Police banned right-wing protests as well.

Adopting a law on same sex unions is one of seven requests of Belgrade Pride every year.

The law’s first draft was published in February 2021, but no further procedures were conducted.

In May 2021 Vucic told the daily Blic that he would not sign the law even if parliament adopted it because Serbia’s constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, although this draft does not mention the word “marriage”.

This year’s Pride week will be held from September 4 to 10 under the slogan “We’re not even close.”

[no-terfs-no-swerfs-no-fascists]

I was waiting for local papers to come out with anything half-decent before I posted anything about it, but since that ain't happening, I'll make do with The Guardian because they're the only ones whose article mentions that our Prime Minister, an out butch lesbian who openly lives with her partner and they have a child, has not only done nothing for the community, but has actively worked against it.

So.

Basically, our war criminal Prezz is terrified of what the fash will do now that he and the Gov can't escape finally admitting that Kosovo is an independent republic and that they've just been beating a dead horse and using the Kosovo Serbs as a political token they fully intend to sell out the second it's profitable for them personally, so he's trying to appease them by cancelling EuroPride.

This potentially means a return to Pride as a protest... and all the violence that will come with it.

The first Pride was organized in 2001, after the "democratic" changes in Serbia, but it ended with a BRUTAL beating of the participants by right-wing groups, football hooligans, and cops. I thought about posting photos, but I didn't want to disturb anyone, and they're googlable.

The second Pride was planned again in 2004, but the organizers canceled it after the March Riots and the burning of mosques in Niš and Belgrade, and it won't be until 2009 that there would be another attempt. This one was blatantly sabotaged by the Government, who abruptly made the decision to move the parade to a location different from the one originally planned, applied, and approved of, effectively making it impossible to hold the event.

The first SUCCESSFUL Pride Parade was held in 2010. And by "successful," I mean nobody got beaten up during the event. However, members of numerous right-wing groups, football hooligans, and members of clergy lined the sidewalks to counter-protest, and people who took part in Pride hound themselves yelled at, threatened, spat on, had various objects thrown at them, and banners with hateful messages were visible everywhere.

In 2014, the first Pride that truly went without any incidents (although counter-protesters were still around, they were drowned out by the sheer number of Pride participants, over 1000 of them - which may not sound like a lot to you, but compared to previous attempts, it was PACKED). The following year was not only the first consecutive Pride, but the first Trans Pride event was held, too.

Pride has been held every year since (although in 2020 it was held in the digital spaces due to COVID-19), every year with new events added and more people attending. The events themselves were safe, although counter-protests keep being held and, unfortunately but predictably, a lot of people get bashed on their way home from Pride.

This year, Belgrade is supposed to be the host of EuroPride (think of it as the Olympics of Pride events in European countries), and about two months ago, serious and constantly escalating attacks on both the community and the organizers have begun to crop up, mostly from right-wing politicians (ie, almost all politicians), but also other right-wing groups and, most recently, the clergy.

I didn't talk about it much because, unfortunately, all that shit is so normalized here that if I did, I'd be talking about nothing else (and, frankly, the past two months have also been extremely difficult for me personally, too). But this shit needs to be talked about, needs to be out there, and you need to know about it from me, as for a lot of you, I'm likely the only person who lives in Serbia that you know.

All if this came at us amidst a scandal of Pride events being pay-to-enter for the first time ever (except for the parade) and a lot of people being justifiably PISSED at the organizers, who are also the leaders of the biggest LGBTQIAP+ NGO in the country, which is a whole nother can of worms that I, honestly, don't have the energy to get into (and I'm supposed to be working anyway, so I should probably bring this story to a conclusion already).

Wish us luck, everyone.

We need it.

Badly.

[gearedaesthetic]

Serbian Special Police Brigade during "EuroPride 2022"

[titoist]

September 1st, 2022 what was today like? mixed, as always. it turns out that yesterdays peeking-at-the-blog did have side-effects - mindbogglingly intense ones, though also mindbogglingly delayed... maybe similar to an extremely slow-acting poison, who's effects seem to just... hit you all at once, at some vague moment. i seemed to have been hit with four, separate, panic attacks in the span of ~6 hours. or maybe it was just one, really, really long one. i am noting this with a degree of detached wonder & awe, as if i was a neutral spectator to my own internal rhythms. it really, really was torturous - like being bludgeoned with a very blunt hammer for hours on end. i had pretty much managed to make myself go through - for the third time - my intense, violent conundrum with my identity... at one point i was pretty sure i was just going to collapse and die! which would have been a fitting way to go, for sure... but demonstrably not in my cards. i think i would kill myself rather than go through it again... with the stipulation that i don't think i would kill myself under any realistic circumstance, but that any less dramatic phrasing really would feel insufficient. - some things have turned out exactly how i expected them to, though, even though i may have been hoping against it. once again, i find myself confronted with the undeniable notion that all of wider society seems... completely, diametrically, socially opposed to what i consider good & human, at some crucial, inconsolable junction i'm unable to even begin to reconcile. at some point, somehow, via the twists and ebbs and flows of some manner of conversation, the europride in belgrade was brought up during a lecture. someone in the back yelled out something - i don't quite remember what, & i can't tell if it's due to exhaustion or a conscious process of memory expurgation - derisive towards gay people, i would guess religiously-driven. the entire room burst into a demented, uproarious laughter. the thought "i really wish i was making up this scenario in order to recount it, for the sake of some performative internal urge, rather than my actually having to go through it, now, in this moment" distinctly flashed in my head as i squeezed my palms open & closed frantically. they were really sweaty. - the identity crisis seemed to slowly fade, on my way home. i can't tell if it's because my brain sincerely... um, magically, suddenly, found some internal contentedness that allowed it to recede - or just because i was, by then, completely and utterly exhausted, gaunt, fatigued, & could thus physically not handle the intensity of the emotion, at all. i would bet the latter, though. i'm not really sure what i feel like. i feel like i am constantly subject to the tyrannical reign of my own brain. i feel like a large, thick wall of hazy glass. i feel like a tunnel. as i was walking home, i stopped near the train tracks that separated my area from the one perpendicular to it. a slow & old-moving train was making it's way across... ringing its horn very violently & frantically, i guess to alert anyone who might not have realized there was a train coming. it was rusted and stained, the windows broken, paint peeling, obviously older than the nation itself was. i watched it slowly go off in the distance. i guess i felt something approximating good in that moment. i feel like my brain is on fire. i feel like i need to go to bed.

[beardedhairyscruffhunks]

#Belgrade will host @Europride 2022. Congratulations! #pride #lgbt #gay #instagay #love #gaypride #lgbtq #loveislove #gayman #gayboy #queer #trans #lesbian #bisexual #beardman #instagram #instagood #photography #bearded #nonbinary #gaybrasil #beargay #gaylove #dragqueen #dragmakeup #gaymen #style #beard (at Belgrade, Montana) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3PH92OHPEt/?igshid=ag3tlpfi0r13

[pinksixty]

For the first time in @EuroPride history, five Pride's are competing for the right to host #Europe’s main #LGBTI event in 2022. https://buff.ly/2Bbt8QO https://www.instagram.com/pinksixty360/p/Bv2WK0AFAex/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ucujtanpehd6

[news247worldpressposts]

#Breaking: Police clashed with right-wing protesters as thousands of people participated in the #EuroPride march in #Serbia's capital, #Belgrade

#Breaking: Police clashed with right-wing protesters as thousands of people participated in the #EuroPride march in #Serbia’s capital, #Belgrade

Police clashed with right-wing protesters as thousands of people participated in the EuroPride march in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, on Saturday despite threats from anti-gay groups.https://t.co/VJTQDxsI3t — DW News (@dwnews) September 18, 2022 Source: Twitter

[mariacallous]

On September 11th, thousands of people brandishing religious symbols and Russian flags answered a call from the Orthodox Church and took to the streets of Belgrade to protest against EuroPride 2022 being held in the Serbian capital.

EuroPride 2022 was launched the next day: a week of conferences and cultural events, due to end with a pride march through the streets of Belgrade. Citing security reasons, the government's 11th-hour decision to ban the march was met with fury by the participants.

EuroPride is the annual European meeting of the LGBTIQA+ community, and this was its first time in the Balkans and South-East Europe. At the first EuroPride conference, the Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić, who is openly lesbian, tried to quell the anger.

"I’m doing my best, I increase the visibility. I have given myself no other right than all of you have. And that is not a lot of rights, I admit.”

This message did not go down well. EuroPride organizers, slammed the ban, as a breach to freedom of assembly. 

«If anybody else can march, and the police is always providing sufficient protection,_and we are the only social group that cannot march, then it’s discrimination", stormed EuroPride 2022 coordinator Goran Miletić.

“_Who is threatening us? And why aren’t they banned? Why are we banned? It’s a peaceful protest! It’s a further degradation of rule of law, a further degradation of our human rights, a further degradation of our constitutional rights._It’s exactly why we need to be on the street on the 17th on Saturday. We must stop this!" said Marko Mihailović, director of the event.

All EuroPride venues were under heavy police protection. In defiance of the ban, volunteers mobilized for the event prepared banners for the Pride. Nothing would prevent them from marching. Many foreign LGBTI activists were there to show their support.

“Human rights in general are never granted. And we’ve seen this also in other fields, like reproduction rights or refugees and immigration rights. We have seen a lot of things going back and forth. It does seem like a constant struggle" sighs Annie Papazoglou, from Greece, before adding, in a smile:"But this is our lives, we must live them to the fullest. That's why we are here, and we are queer, and proud!".

A recent poll states that a majority of Serbs would agree to less restrictive legislation toward members of the LGBTIQA+ community, but also that the stigma is still very strong.

Maja Žilić is from the Youth Initiative For Human Rights Serbia. 

“We have a very high rate of suicide among LGBT teenagers. Especially when they come from local communities outside of Belgrade. People are still very homophobic.  They can't express themselves the way they want to. So they come to Belgrade to work, to study. That's why I came here too."

Maja and her team had organized a public awareness session in the city centre.

“_We are here to say that democracy means everyone has the right to protest.__For some people here there is a ban on their right to protest_”, explains Dejana Dexy Stošić to a woman passing by the group of activists.

“If these people are ill, I really cannot support them, and I just feel sorry for them!", exclaims the woman, before scurrying away.

“She said that gay people have mental diseases!" sighs Dejana, taken aback. "We do have pretty strong reactions, but  we also have pretty good ones. A lot of people actually didn't know about certain things.They ask things like: "They really can’t visit their partner in hospital?” and we answer, “No! That's one of the requests of the Pride march. For homosexual couples have the right to visit their partner in hospital, or to have the right to actually inherit from their partner, things like that. J_ust basic human rights!_"

LGBTIQA+ activists are campaigning for the legal recognition of same-sex couples. A draft law, deemed unconstitutional by the Serbian President, has long been delayed. Aleksandra Gavrilović is from the Lesbian Human Rights Organization LABRIS. She is fighting for a reform of the Serbian family law. Aleksandra founded a family with her partner. Five years ago, she gave birth to triplets through artificial insemination. 

“The first problems started when the children were born, since they were born prematurely, they were in an intensive care unit for premature babies. And my partner could not come to visit them because only parents are allowed to do so. And according to the law in Serbia, parents are a father and a mother. It is a constant fear that you are living with, because the law does not protect us, a constant fear of what will happen if something happens to me. Will my partner, since she has no legal status, be able to have custody of the children?" she explains, before concluding:"We need one comprehensive law, that will include everything -inheritance, health insurance, and all the elements that protect us and are related to our life."

European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli, several ministers, and many European MPs and ambassadors attended Belgrade’s EuroPride. They called for the Serbian government to reconsider the ban on the march, deemed by the European Council as a violation of the European convention on Human Rights.

Terry Reintke is a Member Of European Parliament (Greens/EFA), and LGBTIQA+ Intergroup Co-President.

“Europride is happening in a context where democracy, rule of law, liberal societies, freedom in our societies are under attack. Not only by authoritarian movements inside of Europe, but also, for example, when we look at the Russian aggression towards Ukraine.

And this makes it even more important that now we say : we have to defend these values, we have to defend these rights. And this is why EuroPride will be a symbol of that. “

Boško Obradović is leader of the Dveri Party and close to the Orthodox church and one of the main figures of the anti-Pride protests. While he tolerates legislative amendments on issues like inheritance or visitation rights in hospitals and prisons for homosexual couples, going any further, for him, is out of the question.

“For decades, we have been suffering constant pressure from the EU and NATO. For us to adjust and adapt our value system and our politics to their view of the world. EuroPride is only one part of that agenda that is imposed on us.

That package also includes the obligation to recognize independent Kosovo, impose sanctions on Russia, and also to hold EuroPride in Belgrade. We perceive Europride as part of the occupation agenda that comes to us from the West."

A few hours after meeting the parliamentarian, we hear a very different viewpoint from Aleksandar Savić, alias "Alexis Vandercunt Plastic", hosting Belgrade's monthly Drag party in a reconverted warehouse in the city outskirts.

A drag queen at night, Aleksandar is an activist during the day, with Da Se Zna, an association supporting victims of homophobic violence.

EuroPride, he says, acted as a trigger.

“We had a huge increase of violence in the past month. Four times more than in a year, since the same month of august in 2021." he tells us. "The good thing with EuroPride is that it basically provoked this hate to come out. Because in the past few years everyone was pretending that it doesn't exist, and that everything is going so well. And now it's all out so we can deal with it. And I think that reality check is going to be, I believe, very important for the queer community_to realise that if we don't fight for ourselves, no one is going to fight for us.”

Another 11th-hour decision from the government finally authorised a much shorter version of the march to take place, under the protection of more than 5,000 police. For its participants, the Belgrade event, even restricted, is a landmark moment in history for EuroPride, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. 

The battle is not over, concludes Goran Miletić, the Belgrade EuroPride2022 Coordinator.

“We marched, we showed that we are citizens, that we are here together, that there is solidarity. The fight will continue, this is just one episode. And I think no-one else will ban Pride ever in the future.”

[no-terfs-no-swerfs-no-fascists]

[rasensamen]

Serbien - Tausende trotz Verbot bei Europride-Parade in Belgrad

Ungeachtet eines Verbots durch die serbische Regierung haben in Belgrad tausende Menschen an der Europride-Parade der LGBTQ-Bewegung teilgenommen. Mehr als 60 Gegendemonstranten wurden festgenommen.

[korrektheiten]

Serbisch-Orthodoxe Kirche unterstützt Verbot der EuroPride: „Dem Wertesystem unseres Volkes völlig zuwider“

Zuerst:»Belgrad. Die serbisch-orthodoxe Kirche unterstützt die Entscheidung der serbischen Regierung, die für den 17. September geplante Schwulenparade „EuroPride 2022“ abzusagen. Die Entscheidung sei richtig gewesen, […] Der Beitrag Serbisch-Orthodoxe Kirche unterstützt Verbot der EuroPride: „Dem Wertesystem unseres Volkes völlig zuwider“ erschien zuerst auf ZUERST!. http://dlvr.it/SXzGrQ «

[thenewsmag]

Η Σερβία ακυρώνει το Europride των ΛΟΑΤΚΙ, που είχε προγραμματιστεί για τον Σεπτέμβριο

Η Σερβία ακυρώνει το Europride των ΛΟΑΤΚΙ, που είχε προγραμματιστεί για τον Σεπτέμβριο

Ο πρόεδρος της Σερβίας Aleksandar Vucic ανακοίνωσε το Σάββατο (27/8/2022) την ακύρωση της διεξαγωγής τον Σεπτέμβριο του EuroPride, όμως οι διοργανωτές του αμφισβήτησαν αμέσως την απόφασή αυτή, που αιτιολογήθηκε λόγω μιας «δύσκολης κρίσης» στο Κόσοβο, λέγοντας πως αυτή η μεγάλη συγκέντρωση της κοινότητας ΛΟΑΤΚΙ θα πραγματοποιηθεί όπως έχει προβλεφθεί.«Σύμφωνα με την πλειοψηφία των μελών της…

[scottiestoybox]

Serbian bishop calls for armed attack on LGBTQ+ people: ‘If I had a weapon, I would use it’

Serbian bishop calls for armed attack on LGBTQ+ people: ‘If I had a weapon, I would use it’

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/08/15/serbia-orthodox-church-bishop-nikanor-bogunovic/   Serbian Orthodox Church bishop Nikanor Bogunović of Bana. (Screen capture via YouTube) A senior bishop in Serbia has been condemned for encouraging armed attacks against an LGBTQ+ Pride event in Belgrade. In September, the Serbian capital will host EuroPride, which celebrates LGBTQ+ rights across the…