Saturday was London's annual Pride parade where many go out to the streets in central London and celebrate and raise awareness for gender fluidity/identity/sexuality/etc. This is an important event because people who identify with some of these groups have had to suffer a lot due to society, and I know quite a few people who have been impacted and have had their lives made difficult due to this. In many countries, it's illegal and punishable by death; some religions also do not support it. Many innocent people become alienated as a result of their own identity, so this event is about embracing it and fighting back. The event brings everyone together to showcase individuality and love but also to protest wrongs. Attraction to the same gender or wishing to identify or not identify with gender is also still not widely tolerated in the countries where it is deemed 'acceptable'. In fact, the amount of the population identifying to these groups are unknown because some have refused to accept it. However, I have read that anywhere between 1 in 10 or 1 in 16 people identify as belonging to one of these groups. The numbers could increase with wider acceptance. Whether it is 1 in 10 or 16, that is quite a lot of people, and no one should suffer based on their identity preferences nor who they are attracted to.
The London Pride parade is something that I've always wanted to watch, but it was something that I had not gotten around to doing so until this year because I'd always had something planned on the same weekend; normally this was a Fourth of July BBQ. I watched the parade from Regent Street at the Piccadilly Circus end. London Pride had a real festival atmosphere with rainbow flags and colours everywhere. A lot of the shops and businesses had also decorated for Pride, and several of these companies also had a spot in the parade. (I do hope these companies are doing their part for Pride and not trying to capitalise off of it.)
I cannot say anything more other than I saw smiles everywhere, and everyone seemed to be having a fun time. With that in mind, I will post my best photographs of the parade.
The Red Arrows did a fly-past.
After the parade, I checked out the Infinity Chamber at Covent Garden, which was decorated for Pride. (See my original post about it here: Selfie Time at Covent Garden's Infinity Chamber.)
Also, quite a few restaurants had their own specials for Pride, such as DumDum Doughnuts in Covent Garden. (I originally covered DumDum donuts when they had one small shop in BoxPark Shoreditch here: DumDum Doughnuts (Shoreditch, London).) Their special doughnut included a vanilla rainbow glaze covered with Skittles candy.
Another company in Covent Garden (Whipped) had cookies and whipped ice cream with rainbow colours.
Leave a comment