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OutRight Action International
IN CONTEXT
Overview: Pride in Context
I
n March 2022, two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian’s Orthodox Church leader Bishop Kirill named “gay pride parades” as the litmus test defining the opposing sides in a war that he said would determine “which side of God humanity will be on.”3 It was not the first disparaging remark about Pride in Ukraine emanating from Russian leadership; in 2019, Russia asserted during a United Nations (UN) meeting that Ukraine needed “real democratization, and not just colorful gay parades.”4
Across the Atlantic, US lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted in June 2022: An entire #PrideMonth and millions in spending through corporations & our government on LGBTQ sexual identity needs to end. The movements [sic] goals were achieved, were they not?5 Kirill and Greene’s comments on Pride place both on one side of what South African writer Mark Gevisser describes as a global “pink line”6 dividing those that embrace sexual and gender diversity and those who reject it. On the other side of this fault line are the activists in more than 100 countries that hold Pride marches and other events aimed at amplifying LGBTIQ visibility and demanding inclusion and respect for rights. From Albania to Vietnam, from Angola to Venezuela, LGBTIQ people understand that Pride is an opportunity to celebrate movement goals that have been achieved while also striving toward those that 3 “Russian Church Leader Appears to Blame Gay Pride Parades for Ukraine War,” Moscow Times, 7 March 2022, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/07/russian-church-leaderappears-to-blame-gay-pride-parades-for-ukraine-war-a76803 (accessed 18 May 2022) 4 United Nations General Assembly, Seventy-third Session: 96th Plenary Meeting, A/73/ PV.96, 28 June 2019, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3813739?ln=en (accessed 10 June 2022), p. 8. In the spirit of democratization, many Ukrainian Pride organizers have become active parts of the resistance to Russian aggression. Some are engaged in humanitarian work, providing shelter, medicine, and food to displaced LGBTIQ people. Elya Shchemur, an activist who volunteered with both Kharkiv Pride and Kyiv Pride, was a casualty of the invasion, killed when Russia shelled the local territorial defense office where she was volunteering in March 2022. Kevin Rawlinson, “Gay Rights Activist Among Latest Known Victims of Ukraine War,” Guardian, 18 March 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/18/gay-rights-activist-among-latest-known-victims-of-ukraine-war (accessed 31 May 2022). 5 Marjorie Taylor Greene, Twitter post, 1 June 2022, https://twitter.com/RepMTG/ status/1532015980171341825 (accessed 5 June 2022). 6 Mark Gevisser, The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers, Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2020.
