photo: Guillaume Paumier, CC-BY
The International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) lists 115 gay pride events starting May 10th and running through September 8th. That list doesn’t include any in North Carolina. I guess that a crowd of 65,000 people doesn’t compare to those in world capitals. In fact, there are 23 Pride Events in the state. The first Pride March started in 1981 in Durham on the East Campus of Duke. Beginning in 2000, Pride Events spread to communities outside the Triangle. Of course, everyone had to take a break during the Pandemic.
Gay pride events have been disparaged as just a lot of big parties. The balloons and costumes are our way of expressing joy. We are due a time of celebration. Given the long history of discrimination, public events in which the LGBTQ+ people can meet, are major steps in achieving public acceptance and understanding.
In Raleigh, the OutRaleigh Pride Festival draws mostly young students and young families with children. They even have a specific section for children. Most progressives want to get past the old days of hostility and repression.
The events include parades, marches, and festivals (street fairs). One of the major events is the OutSouth Queer Film Festival held at The Carolina Theatre in Durham in August. The Reel Out Festival was held in Charlotte May 15 - 19th. Special events are fun, but a lot of the hard work of achieving real changes requires a lot of just slogging. Advocating for changing the laws, filing court cases, and serving on school boards, etc. produce lasting results.
The City of Charlotte has a nondiscrimination ordinance, and Wake County passed a model ordinance that has been adopted by several communities within the county. Unfortunately, the North Carolina General Assembly passed anti-transgender legislation last year that was a step backward. They are not as wide-ranging as some of the other southern states.
North Carolina was late in coming to recognize LGBTQ+ rights and to allow public events expressing those right in comparison with other more urban states. California and New York were leaders in the 1960s, and Texas joined in the 1970s.
But in recent years, we’ve made significant steps forward. The advocacy group Equality NC will be holding their advocacy day at the General Assembly on May 30th. Federal legislation and court cases have expanded our rights in the past two decades.
What better day than Memorial Day to celebrate the freedom and human rights achieved through the struggle of multiple wars?
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