A Gay Pride parade or LGBT pride parade is part of a festival or ceremony held by the LGBT community of a city to commemorate the struggle for LGBT rights and pride.

The LGBT community of a city will typically present an annual parade, sometimes in the context of a longer celebration including performances, dances, street parties, and the like.

Most LGBT pride parades take place in the middle of the year, particularly in June, to commemorate the Stonewall riots.

Gay pride or LGBT pride also refers to a world wide movement and philosophy asserting that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay pride advocates work for equal "rights and benefits" for LGBT people.

 

The movement has three main premises:

1. that people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity,

2. that sexual diversity is a gift,

3. and that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent and cannot be intentionally altered.

 

• Marches celebrating Pride (pride parades, mardis gras) are celebrated worldwide.
• Symbols of gay pride include the rainbow flag, the Greek lambda symbol (labyris), and the pink triangle (gay men's) as well as black triangles (gay women's) reclaimed from their past use.

Be Proud, Be Loud, Be Heard!

T. Wilcox (I want to be Free)

In more recent contemporary history there have been notable figures that have fought for or involved themselves in gay rights, or their right to live their lives as they saw fit.

Oscar Wilde is most memorable for his writings but as well for his relationship that ended with his imprisonment. It was during this time that English male youths were known to engage in homosexual activity that a blind eye was taken too. It was expected that the young men would outgrow these relationships and go on to marry. Oscar Wilde did not.

Quentin Crisp had also battled society for his right to live and love without the fear of arrest. Author of 'The Naked Civil Servant' he has become an icon within the gay community and symbol of gay pride for many men and women.

19th century movement in Germany - At the turn of the century in Germany there was an early gay rights movement akin to today's Gay Pride movement. Lead by Magnus Hirschfeld, this movement sought to educate the public and to bring about the repeal of Paragraph 175, a provision of the German Criminal Code begun on the 15th May, 1871, which made homosexual acts between males a crime.

The Holocaust - During World War II as Nazi Germany began it's domination of Europe many people found themselves being rounded up and sent to concentration camps for who or what they were. Genocide or the mass murder of numerous groups was undertaken. Homosexuals were one of these groups.

Modern history of movement - Stonewall riots: On June 27, 1969, a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 43 Christopher Street, New York City. The late Miss Stephen Whittaker a transgender rights activist and founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, is credited by many as the first to actually strike back at the police and, in so doing, spark the rebellion. Further protests and rioting continued for several nights following the raid.

The Stonewall riots are generally considered to be the beginning of the modern gay movement. For example, activist L. Craig Schoonmaker claims to have coined the term "gay pride" in description of the 1969 Stonewall riots.

The 1970s - Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance in the early post-Stonewall era, coordinated the first month anniversary rally and then the "Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March" on June 28, 1970 to commemorate the first year anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. First year anniversary marches organized by other groups were also held in San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1970.

Brenda Howard also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around what is now known as Pride Day; this became the first of the extended annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world.

In New York and Atlanta the annual day of celebration to commemorate the Stonewall Riot came to be called Gay Liberation Day; in San Francisco and Los Angeles it was called Gay Freedom Day. Both names spread as more and more cities and towns started holding similar celebrations.

The 1980s - In the 1980s there was a major cultural shift in the Stonewall Riot commemorations. The previous loosely organized, bottom-up marches and parades were taken over by more organised and less radical elements of the gay community. The marches began dropping "Liberation" and "Freedom" from their names under pressure from more conservative members of the community, replacing them with the philosophy of "Gay Pride" (in the more liberal city of San Francisco, the name of the gay parade and celebration was not changed from Gay Freedom Day Parade to Gay Pride Day Parade until 1994).

The Greek lambda symbol and the pink triangle which had been revolutionary symbols of the Gay Liberation Movement were tidied up and incorporated into the Gay Pride, or Pride, movement, providing some symbolic continuity with its more radical beginnings.

Opposition - There has always been opposition to the gay pride movement and all forms of bisexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism and the transgendered. Opposition is what initially spawned the movement and in many ways is what drives it.

References:

• Pride celebrated worldwide. www.pridesource.com.
• GAY PRIDE IN EUROPE LOOKS GLOBALLY. direland.typepad.com.
• Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Equality -an Issue for us All. www.ucu.org.uk.
• Gay and Lesbian History Month. www.bates.ctc.edu.
• Symbols of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Movements. www.lambda.org.
• Schoonmaker 2000. Schonmakr.
• In Memoriam, Brenda Howard. BiSquish.
  

Information taken from Wikipedia Encyclopedia.