Our very first action took place at the GayPride Bucharest on June, 29.  With the great help of RoR Budapest, we managed to set up the first band and start the carnival!

It is important to have a Gay Pride in Bucharest, where homophobia is the norm (while other cities in the region transform homophobia into state policy) and the townhall still discriminates queer people while “normality” is owned by fascists.

We took part at the Gay Pride because the LGBTQ movement should be more visible and we are glad that this year the gender/ethnic/transnational diversity was present within the Gay Fest week.

On the other hand, we observe same problems within the Pride discourse that make us concerned:

– are we sure that all we want is to be “accepted”, “tolerated”, to show how “normal” we are and to show that “we are facing the same problems as heterosexuals”? are we trying to legitimize the LGBTQ community as a “civilized”-middle-class-consumerist-elitist group – do
we in fact just want to be part of the “normal”/”common sense” mainstream?!?

– who are our allies in the struggle? Homophobic, racist and sexist media like Academia Catavencu or Romania Libera “promoted” the Pride this year, without a big change in their discourse. Or pop stars like Loredana who promote stereotypes about LGBTQ people (read gay men) as “creative” and “women’s best friends”. Or Berlin and Vienna artists that have no idea about the local queer scene but are necessary in making the Pride more commercial and sale-able. Why the main partners of the event are a club, an Austrian tourist agency, the foundation of an Austrian bank, the UK and US embassies?

– states that are having a major negative impact on global communities, including queers, women, POC and other non-dominant social groups are giving lessons of “tolerance” and “civilization” through their representatives on the occasion of the Pride. These positions are taken as given and local groups accept the label of backwardness and the colonialist approach regarding local sexual rights while they happily join the preached consumerist/ neoliberal / bourgeois position (that does not stand for an assurance concerning your rights).

Nevertheless, we took part as a separate group (somehow forced by the happy-house noise played by the Pride DJ) in order to show our solidarity and alliance with the LGBTQ people which are under constant attack by the homophobic repressive state structures, religious fundamentalist and fascists (who fortunately didn’t manage to disrupt the Pride this year):

We are here

We are queer

We are fabulous

Don’t mess with us!