The LGBTI State Pride Organizing Committee has agreed to hold the Madrid Pride Parties in 2020 virtually between July 1 and 5In other words, on the dates set before the coronavirus crisis, which has forced the event format to be redefined. In addition, online actions will be held on June 28, LGTBI Pride Day.
So what The Committee has informed, Composed of COGAM, LGTB + Collective of Madrid, the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals (FELGTB) and the Association of Companies and Professionals for Gays and Lesbians of Madrid (AEGAL).
# MadOrgullo2020: The LGTBI State Pride will take place from July 1 to 5 in online format. All the information on our website ????https://t.co/oBdUKQn6tP
– MADO Madrid Pride (@MADOrgullo) April 29, 2020
Although it was decided to postpone it, in the end it will be held adapting to new technologies
In the first moment, the Committee decided to postpone the event. But, as he has specified now, “in view of the prospect that is presented in the coming months” and with the “commitment to the health and safety of citizens”, it has been decided adapt Pride to new technologies and do it online on the dates initially planned.
“The State Pride wants pay tribute to all citizens and to convey a global message of strength, support, visibility and hope, especially to all people in the LGTBI community who more are suffering this current socio-sanitary emergency “, maintains the Organizing Committee.
“The form but not the background” is transformed
After the Stonewall riots, the first Pride protests were held in 1970. Now, 50 years later and in the current context, “Pride reinvents itself once again, and it transforms the form but not the background “, as the organizers have remarked.
For this reason, among the activities that will make up this Pride, there will be an online proclamation,as well as other cultural, demanding, leisure activities and with initiatives that encourage people to participate in this new format, adorning their houses and balconies with the colors of the rainbow. “Without forgetting, of course, that in this 2020 we celebrate 15 years of the approval of Equal Marriage “, have pointed.
“Pride can provide a dose of energy and a message of improvement and resilience, qualities inherent in the LGTBI community, which has already had to deal with another pandemic, that of HIV and centuries of discrimination “, organizers have said.
“This Pride is more necessary than ever”
“We cannot forget that Pride is above all visibility and vindication and We do not want this moment of crisis to be a setback on the rights and claims of LGTBI people. It is precisely now that many of the discriminations that we suffer on a daily basis are getting worse and those who until now were vulnerable are even more so “, they have added.
In his opinion, “this Pride is more necessary than ever.” Therefore, they will continue “celebrating and claiming” just like in the last 40 years. “Pride 2020 will serve to give voice to the different realities that LGTBI people are facing during the crisis,” they argue.
As they have argued, the online celebration of Pride 2020 is in line with the different initiatives They have been adopted by numerous Prides around the world and “will empower Madrid as a free, respectful, welcoming city and a benchmark for diversity.”
As they have assured, FELGTB, COGAM and AEGAL are currently designing the programming and they’re working so that the Madrid Pride, the State Pride, “continues to be a reference for the LGTBI community both in Spain and internationally”. “It will bring color, energy and a message of hope to a citizenry that this month and a half has shown that it is not overwhelmed by these harsh circumstances,” they defended.
Vulnerability of LGTBI people to the crisis of covid-19
As the entities that make up the Organizing Committee of Pride have denounced, “the confinement situation is aggravating existing problems in the daily life of LGTBI people. “This is the case of the loneliness of older LGTBI people who, according to a study by FELGTB, in 52% of cases they live alone (compared to 24% of the total of Spanish society) and have no or few support networks.
Furthermore, as they have asserted, “the need to remain at home is increasing conflict situations within the home as the victims of intragender violence “.
They have also highlighted that the situation of the LGTBI people living with families who do not respect their sexual orientation or their gender identity, as well as that of asylum seekers.
Transsexual women in situations of extreme need because they cannot exercise their work
Furthermore, they argue that many trans women, pushed into sex work by frequent transphobia in the world of work, “are currently in situations of extreme need because the State of alarm makes it impossible for them to continue developing the activities that guarantee the income with which they subsist day by day “.
Likewise, they have influenced that “many LGTBI people continue to have to go to their jobs without being able to be visible, with the stress that that adds to the existing one due to the current situation “; and others” are being seen affected by ERTES or suffering the impact of the closure economic activities “or the loss of loved ones, uncertainty, feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, like the rest of the population.
– .
