Here we are Brighton & Hove, Pride weekend 2021, and our second in as many years without the familiar celebrations, parade, community events or huge park festivals. What we do have, the most important elements are EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US! The LGBTQI+’s of the city who make it Proud.
Scene hopes you are with family or friends and in a good place, we send you our love and good wishes.
Pride is about memories, making new ones, recalling fond ones, remembering people we have spend Pride’s with, who are no longer with us, or not able to join us.
Pride is the way we feel, Pride is what we share, Pride is reaching out, smiling, sharing love.
This year, Pride is in the streets, Pride is on-line. Pride is on at the Ironworks, Pride is at home. Pride is streaming. Pride is in the parks, on the beaches, in our backyards, gardens and kitchens. Pride is always personal, this year more than others. Pride is what we make it, want it to be, need it to be and find it to be.
It’s a year to remember, as it always is, and although we are not able to celebrate how we may want to, or be with our loved ones, or dance, protest, platform, or strut, or flirt or laugh or do any of the myriad things which Pride is to each and every one of us. We ARE still PROUD. Of who and what we are.
We remember always that Pride is a protest, and still we have LGBTQ+ people who live in fear, of their lives in some countries of the world, for their safety in others. Here is the UK our community is under attack in ways that it’s not been for a long time. The forces of division, extremism, harmful speech, twisted lies, misinformation and wicked political point scoring target us, each and every day. Some of us more than others. As always in our community it is the most vulnerable who suffer the most. Step up and protect each other Queers.
We must look out for each other, we must reach out to each other, we should try and be considerate and understanding of difference and we should honour each other’s truth.
Pride is about change. Many years ago Queer people of colour, Gay men, butch Dykes, rent boys and a host of other tired persecuted people ran out of patience and decided to fight back. Stonewall was just one of those instances. There have been many. Understanding our own history, gives us the ability to comprehend what is happening now. We are still wrapped up in this damn pandemic, causing social upheaval on a scale that none of us have experienced in this country. There is a global movement around recognising & confronting racism in all its forms and driving for real change. Here it feels like it might be over, that’s not the case for most of the world.
The LGBTQ+ community is part of this struggle. We always have been, always will be. We are a community of difference. Each one of us adding our own glorious difference to the whole. Our own uniqueness to the rainbow of community that we share.
Our difference makes us stronger, gives us insight, allows us empathy, courage and understanding. If we chose to listen.
Pride always changes, it always has, from riot to protest, from march to parade, from picnic to international festival with famous Divas, we have had it all.
This year, we have the essence of Pride in each of us, in our hearts, homes and smiles. Share a Pride smile with a stranger, smile with your eyes if you have your face-mask on. Be kind, share kindness. Share the Love.
Deck out our streets with every flag you have, out the windows, from our gardens, let them fly. Be Proud where you are.
Be Fierce today Brighton & Hove, in small ways, in ways filled with joy. We all miss the wonder of the parade, and Pride, the street party, the park picnics and sense of community we share from being a huge crowd of our peers, when we own the streets and parks, when we are in the majority. We all miss that. We are still HERE and in this city we are EVERYWHERE!
Whatever you do stay safe, and be considerate. Wear a face-mask if you’re out and about, protect our community- be considerate of the most vulnerable amongst us. But SHINE, shine with such a furious LGBTQ light, let’s burn fiercely. Like a million Queer suns!
Happy Pride 2021
We took a walk up St James St earlier to look at some of the Pride themed windows on display this year..
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