Edmonton Pride

Edmonton Pride
The official logo of Edmonton Pride
Type pride festival
Legal status active
Purpose To endeavour to unify and educate by celebrating gender and sexual diversity through a sustainable annual festival and year-round community outreach within our Capital Region.
Headquarters Edmonton
Region served
Edmonton Capital Region
Website Edmonton Pride

The Edmonton Pride Festival (commonly known as Edmonton Pride) is an LGBTQ2S+ pride festival, held annually in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.[1] The event is organized by the Edmonton Pride Festival Society, a non-profit organization, and is currently held in early June each year.

Unlike many pride parades which are held at the end of their associated festival week, Edmonton Pride hosts its parade near the opening of the event.[2] As well, the Edmonton Pride Festival Society frequently chooses to designate community groups, rather than individuals, as the grand marshals of its parade; in 2012, the parade was led by the trustees of the Edmonton Public School Board,[3] and in 2013 the event was led by the Pride Centre of Edmonton, the city's main LGBTQ2S+ community centre.

On June 9, 2018, a group of protesters from within the community temporarily stopped the parade demanding law enforcement and military members be dis-invited from the parade and future parades due to community experiences of fear and discomfort with the police. [4] After a period of negotiation between the parade organizers and protest organizers, parade organizers agreed to the requests of the protest and issued a statement that it "agreed with the demands, and that police and military members would not march in the parade until the community feels that they have taken the necessary steps for all community members to feel safe with their presence." This event highlighted both the facts that the LGBTQ2S+ communities are not a monolithic entity that has universally and equally benefited from improvements so far but additionally the need for the Pride Parade to continue to be more aware of the variety of concerns within the Edmonton LGTBQ2S+ communities. [5]

History

The first Pride celebration in Edmonton was held in 1980, and became a weeklong festival in 1983.

The event has its roots in the protest movement against a police raid on the Pisces Spa, a gay bathhouse, on May 30, 1981.[6] However, unlike Pride Week in Toronto, which also had its roots in police protests against Operation Soap, the parade did not become a regular feature of the event until the early 1990s.[7]

The 2013 festival was opened with the raising of the rainbow flag at CFB Edmonton on June 7, the first time in Canadian history that the flag was flown at a military base.[8] The parade on June 8 followed 102 Avenue between 107 Street and Churchill Square.[9] An estimated 30,000 spectators turned out for the event.[9] Performers at the parade event included singer-songwriters Rae Spoon, Jeffery Straker and Kim Kuzma.[2]

As of 2017, the Edmonton Pride Parade had 50,000 attendees.

References

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