Bhubaneswar: The members of LGBTQIA plus community participated in a rally to mark ‘pride month’ in Odisha capital on Sunday.
Hundreds of the community members from Odisha and outside took out the pride parade from Master Canteen square to Ram Mandir square in Bhubaneswar. Holding rainbow flags (symbol of their community) and placards calling for equal status in society, they raised slogans in support of their demands.
Wearing colourful costumes and getting faces painted with rainbow flags, they danced down the road, creating a carnival-like atmosphere. The members of LGBTQIA plus community celebrate June as the pride month every year.
“There is no abnormality in us. We do not carry any disease and are not sick. We want to be treated like so called normal persons. Love, not hatred, is our call to the people,” said a participant in the march.
“We want to send out a message that like others, we are also the creation of God. Hence, we deserve respect and equality in the society,” a local TV channel quoted another participant, Meera Parida, as saying.
The world’s first pride parade took place in New York City on 28th June, 1970, a year after over 500 people – drag queens, butch lesbians, transgender people, gay men, homeless youth – attacked the New York City Police who were harassing and beating up the queer patrons in a bar. Next day, over 1,00 people had joined the riots. It was for the first time that people had raised their voice against the anti-gay legal system and the institutions enforcing it.
It took LGBTQIA plus community one year to get support from like-minded people to bring out pride parade in New York on the same date and it has become an annual affair since then.
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