In the US, June is officially Pride Month, but Pride celebrations are normally happening throughout the year in different parts of the world.

Obviously, the Covid-19 pandemic is still creating a fair bit of confusion and uncertainty, but here’s our guide to some of the Pride events that will hopefully be happening around the world.

Pride celebrations around the world

Canada

Toronto

• Toronto held a virtual event in June 2021. They’re expecting to be back to an in-person event in June 2022, and dates have been set as 24-26 June.

United States

Miami Beach Pride

• Their 2022 event was held in early April. Dates for 2023 have not yet been announced.

Long Beach Pride

• 2022 dates have been announced – they’re looking at 8-10 July.

Los Angeles

• 2022 dates have been announced – they’re looking at 10-12 June.

Key West

• They held their Pride celebrations in early June of 2021. They’ve announced 2022 dates as being 1-5 June.

Houston

• 25 June is the date for 2022.

New York City

• They’re looking at 26 June as their main event in 2022.

San Francisco

• 2022 dates have been announced as 25-26 June.

Chicago

• They were planning a Pride parade in October of 2021, but they had to cancel that. A date for 2022 has been announced – they’re looking at 26 June.

San Diego

• They’ll be holding their parade on 16 July.

South America

Sao Paulo

• They’ve scheduled their 2022 parade for 19 June.

UK

London

• Pride in London will return on 2 July.

UK Black Pride

• Their 2022 event will be held on 14 August.

Liverpool

• We’re expecting the event to return in 2022 but dates have not yet been confirmed.

Glasgow

• There doesn’t appear to have been any updates for a while but we’re assuming that they will return at some stage in 2022.

Newcastle

• 2022 dates have been announced as 22-24 July.

Brighton

• Organisers announced that they had to cancel the 2021 celebrations due to continuing uncertainty about Covid-19 and challenges around event insurance. 2022 dates are 5-7 August.

Bristol

• 9 July is the date for 2022.

Manchester

• 26-29 August are the dates for 2022.

Birmingham

• 24-25 September are the dates for 2022.

Europe

Brussels

• 21 May is the date for 2022.

Lisbon

• 19-22 June are the dates for 2022.

Sitges

• Dates for 2022 have been announced as 8-12 June.

Athens

• They held some small events across the summer of 2021. Date for 2022 is 18 June.

Disneyland Paris Pride

• This event is returning on 11 June.

Tel Aviv

• 10 June is the date for 2022.

Paris

• 25 June is the date for 2022.

Madrid

• Dates for 2022 are 24 June to 3 July.

Cologne

• Dates for 2022 are 18 June – 3 July.

Berlin

• Date for 2022 is 23 July.

Amsterdam

• Dates for 2022 are 30 July to 7 August.

Copenhagen

• Dates for 2022 are 13-21 August.

Benidorm

• Their 2021 event was held in early September. Dates for 2022 have not yet been announced.

Maspalomas

• There’s a summer Pride – this will be held 5-15 May.
• There’s also a Winter Pride – in 2022, this will be held 7-13 November.

Asia

Tokyo Rainbow Pride

• Their 2022 event was held in April. Dates for 2023 have not yet been set.

Taipei

• 29 October is the date for 2022.

Africa

Cape Town

• This event is normally held in February. 2023 dates have not yet been announced.

Australia

Sydney

• Usually held across February and March, the 2023 event will also combine with World Pride. The march will happen on 5 March, but there’s also a lot of other events worth being part of.

Melbourne

• Dates for 2023 are 22 January – 12 February.

Brisbane

• Brisbane’s Pride celebrations are normally in September, but in 2021 their events were held in October. Plans for 2022 have not yet been announced.

Why is June recognised as Pride Month?

Across the United States – and in many other parts of the world – the month of June is officially recognised as a time to celebrate LGBTQ Pride.

The month of June is significant because the Stonewall riots took place at the end of June in 1969.

Brenda Howard is credited with being one of the main driving forces in coordinating the first LGBTQ Pride march. Howard is also credited with the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day. Additionally, Howard – along with fellow activists Robert Martin and Craig Schoonmaker – is credited with popularising the word Pride to describe these events.

Throughout the month of June, towns and cities across the US and around the world hold LGBTQ Pride celebrations.

Why were the Stonewall riots a big deal?

The Stonewall riots of 28 June 1969 weren’t the first protests or confrontations between police and the LGBTQ community, but they’ve become symbolic of the growing consciousness and confidence that paved the way for the fight for equality and freedom from discrimination.

What triggered the Stonewall riots was a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. In the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn was a mafia-run bar that was a hub for the neighbourhood’s marginalised queer community.

In the late 60s, police raids on bars like the Stonewall Inn were commonplace – part of the continuing harassment and victimisation that LGBTQ people were experiencing at that time. The raid on the Stonewall Inn on 28 June 1969 sparked that sense of frustration into violent protests – protests that lasted six days and involved thousands of people. Perhaps most importantly, the riots received widespread media coverage.

Prior to the Stonewall riots, the push for LGBTQ equality was led by ‘homophile’ advocates – organisations such as the Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Society sought to organise and speak for gay men, and they favoured assimilation. Their objective was to demonstrate that gay men were ‘normal’ and just like everybody else.

Following the Stonewall riots, and in line with the counter-culture movements of the late-60s, representatives of the LGBTQ community became increasingly emboldened and more confrontational. New organisations were established, community-focused newspapers were published, and there was more of a willingness to be open, to be visible, to be different.

It was on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, 28 June 1970, that the first Gay Pride marches were held . The LGBTQ communities of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago held events to commemorate the raid on the Stonewall Inn and the violent confrontation that followed. The following year, Gay Pride marches were also held in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm . In subsequent years, the number of cities participating continued to grow.

Today, Pride events and celebrations are a big moment. They’re an important and symbolic opportunity for our community to come together, to celebrate our diversity and our visibility as well as our strength and resilience.

If you’re growing up in today’s world, starting to navigate your sexuality, starting to understand how you connect with the LGBTQ community that you see around you, it’s important to understand how LGBTQ identity has evolved over time, and the role that events such as the Stonewall riots have played in that.

History is important because it helps us learn from those that have gone before us – the battles that have been fought, the struggles that have been won, the mistakes that have been made.

You might not feel that you’ve got much connection with the people who lived in New York City in 1969, but it’s because of those people  –  because of their lifetimes of harassment and discrimination that culminated in six nights of violence  –  that we can proudly identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, or however you want to define yourself within the broad LGBTQ umbrella. It’s because of those people that we can live openly as ourselves, that we can get married if we want, that we can have families if we want, that we have the freedom to lead the lives that we want. It’s because of those people that we continue to hold Pride marches around the world.

We honour the marginalised people of Greenwich Village  –  people who had nothing left to lose, people who were pushed so far that they had no alternative but to stand up to harassment and stand up to discrimination .

When is World Pride?

In 2019, World Pride was held in New York City to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.

World Pride is an international Pride celebration that happens every two years. A different city hosts World Pride each time.

Since it began in 2000, World Pride has been held in the following cities:

• 2000: Rome
• 2006: Jerusalem
• 2012: London
• 2014: Toronto
• 2017: Madrid
• 2019: New York City
• 2021: Copenhagen
• 2023: Sydney

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