Vietnam is about to celebrate LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Pride for first time ever. The Pride begins August 3 and ends with a public bike parade trough Hanoi August 5.
GayStarNews tells the story about 25-year old Tam Nguyen, the initiator of the event, which was inspired by attending the Swedish pride in Stockholm in 2011. Her participation was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency.
Back from Stockholm Tam Nguyen wanted to make something involving both Sweden and Vietnam. Sweden has been running an LGBT project in Vietnam since 2009, but almost all LGBT activities has been implemented by foreign NGOs or non-LGBT people. She saw the Pride as an opportunity for Vietnamese LGBT persons to organized something themselves.
While Thailand celebrated Pride first time back in 1999, no one has ever tried to arrange a Pride in Vietnam until now. Tam Nguyen and her colleagues at CSAGA (Center for Studies and Applied Sciences in Gender – Family – Women and Adolescents) believe that the reason is people’s perceptions of a Pride as a huge parade with thousands of people. Tam Nguyen’s expectations are more modest. So far 250 people have clicked “Partipate” on the internet, but she only expects half of them to show up.
Besides the bike parade the pride event will host a cultural diversity of film screenings, research presentation, and music live performance at Goethe Institute.
