Pride Pretoria hosts annual parade

The annual Pretoria Pride parade and festival took place over the weekend at the Centurion Rugby Club, in Centurion.

The LGBTQ community celebrated the day with what was described as a Cirque du Soleil, Greatest Showman and a hint of Rainbow Circus theme.

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The parade was celebrating its 6th year, which saw diverse people from Soshanguve, Hammanskraal, Mamelodi, Boksburg and other parts of Johannesburg, support the LGBTQ parade.

Pretoria pride parade spokesperson Richard Van Der Walt said The Pretoria parade had grown over the years into one of the largest LGBTQ Pride celebrations in the country.

Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga said “Pretoria Pride is an important event to, project a positive stance against discrimination and violence towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Promote self-affirmation, dignity and equal rights. Increase visibility of LGBT people as a group, build community and most importantly celebrate diversity.”

Msimanga said Pretoria Pride had become one of the most well attended Pride Parades in the country.

Miss Gay Pride Pretoria Scarlett Rose said she felt that more events such as the pride were needed in the community.

She said she was sending out a message to everyone in the community that was not openly gay to come out when they were ready because it was their journey and no one else’s.

Mr Gay Pride Pretoria Conrad Jonas said he did not like the title of the Gay Pride Pretoria and the community being referred to as LQBTQ.

“I would like to change these titles to human pride, because I feel as soon as we start having all these cliques and labels, we start leaving people out and sectionalising certain groups.”

He said if the pride could be human pride, it would be inclusive to all members of the community and not make it seem as a specific event for a group of people.

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Dylan Nlhango said South Africa needed more events such as the Pretoria Pride to engage and educate more people.

He said “The world we live in was very discriminatory, it is either you black, you white, you gay/ lesbian or you are straight”, and belong with that particular sectionalised group.

He said the event where the LGBTQ community was brought out to enjoy themselves was an initiative that should be orchestrated nationally.

“We need to tackle other places that were not gay friendly to educate the people.”

Nlhango said he felt Pretoria and Johannesburg had accepted the LGBTQ community and it was time to branch out.