Stories from the Past 10 Years
Every June is LGBTQ Pride month. All around the world, rainbow flags can be seen alongside the parades, parties, and celebrations that are held in support of the LGBTQ community. Instead of being envious of these sights from the “outside world”, China also has its own volunteer-run Pride festival celebrating its 10-year anniversary – ShanghaiPRIDE.
Regardless of whether you’ve personally participated in the event or have never heard of it before, ShanghaiPRIDE has grown from its original 8 organizers and 3000 participants to the 30 organizers and over 6500 participants today.
Throughout the month of June, the diverse events of the festival will greatly impact the LGBTQ community of this land. ShanghaiPRIDE throughout the last decade seems like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with the core pieces being its volunteers, partners and sponsors, and the countless participants who have attended our events.
Last time, we shared the stories of our ShanghaiPRIDE volunteers in the past 10 years. If you haven’t read them yet, you may tap the image below to take a look.
To most people, Pride is about the parade and costumes for homosexuals and transgenders. In fact, LGBTQ-friendly allies such as parents, children, colleagues, friends, and public figures are also a significant part of the festival making their voices heard.
Today, we’ll share the stories of 2 of our lovely participants.
Yuanyuan: I never gave up.
Yuanyuan has been participating in ShanghaiPRIDE for 5 years. She thinks that many participants of ShanghaiPRIDE became more likely to accept their identity. “My goal to participate in ShanghaiPRIDE is to meet my kind and share with them my story of coming out, in order to encourage them to live our own lives.”
Yuanyuan is a regular at the annual Pride Run. At the beginning, she was not able to complete the route of Pride Run. She then fell in love with running and now she’s running every morning. Maybe this is a “side effect” of ShanghaiPRIDE: it does not only make participants happy, but also transforms them into a better version of themselves.
Curtis Baker: “Keep going! Don’t Stop!”
Curtis Baker also started from Pride Run with ShanghaiPRIDE. He said, “The most memorable experience was seeing the LGBT+ and Allies come together for one event celebrating together. It was unifying across diverse backgrounds, companies, and ages to strengthen the LGBT community within Shanghai.”
Everyone is happy about ShanghaiPRIDE hitting its 10th year. In the past 10 years, we’re determined to bring the voices of our community to the public. Be prepared to see another awesome ShanghaiPRIDE!
We’d like to express our gratitude to Yuanyuan and Curtis Baker. We’d also like to thank you for participating and supporting ShanghaiPRIDE.
In the past 10 years, whether you have participated in ShanghaiPRIDE events or not, everyone is welcome to leave your messages sharing the most touching moments, or send “Our Story” to shanghaipride@gmail.com. We will pick some of them to publish.
