Bhubaneswar: The queer community seems to have found acceptance by the city dwellers at last. The evidence lies in the number of people joining hands to support their cause. On September 1, the city will witness the first-of-its-kind Pride Parade as the rainbow coloured flag will fly proudly, while people from the city who empathise with them will lend them voice by demanding rights, justice and freedom for the LGBTQIA community in Odisha.
Bhubaneswar Pride is being co-organized by The Parichay Collective (LGBQ Community of Odisha), Meera Parida’s NGO, Sakha (an indigenous trans- community, being supported by the state government for the past few years) and SAATHI NGO (working for the cause of HIV-AIDS for over a decade in the state). Representatives from these three organizations have come together to build a five-member core team.
It was on June 28, 1969 when a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Manhattan where the patrons fought back police who had been raiding the bar from time to time. A protest broke out. That spark ignited the beginning of the gay rights movement that snowballed into a larger movement for the entire LGBTQIA community.
The first gay pride parade, ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day (CSLD) March, was organised in 1970 to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
Pride Parade has already been organised in various cities such as Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. These cities have established organisations working for the LGBTQ.
However, for a state like Odisha, Bijaya Biswal said, “Which is made up of not just the elites but tribals, working class, farmers and other migrants comprising the major population, the LGBTQIA movement cannot exist in isolation, without being intersectional.”
She is the brain behind the Pride Parade in Bhubaneswar.
“I am addressing not only LGBTQIA specific problems in the parade but the general social interpretation of ‘shame’ and ‘untouchability,’ the majority deciding what is best for the minorities, class bias and sex discrimination within and outside the community and the general idea about the freedom of love. We will talk about inclusion in general, from every perspective. Pride is just a stepping stone for our far-fetched dream,” she said.
Various events have been held in the last one week for people to come together and discuss their ideas on LGBTQIA. There was Queer Poetry and Story Telling, Queer Movie Screening and Queer Literature Readings.
“I am expecting people from the community, people who are parents to children who identity as LGBTQIA+, the homophobics who have malleable mindsets, teenagers and school students who are still questioning their sexualities, lesbian women and gay men in heterosexual marriages, depression and suicide survivors who have a problem accepting themselves. Our events are for all those who need an open discussion regarding this which is so stigmatized in India,” Bijaya added.
