On June 28th, 1969 the Stonewall Riots kicked off a larger gay rights movement in the USA.
In 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago – today pride parades are taking place all around the world.
In 2018, I wanted to know who the people organizing today’s pride parades are, what the marches mean to them, and met wonderfully powerful, loving and kind people from places, which might not be the first ones that come to mind, when we think of queer love.
See all Faces of Pride.
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EVIE WU – SHANGHAI PRIDE
What’s your name and age? Hi! This is Evie Wu. I’m 30.
Since when have you been involved with Shanghai Pride, and what do you do? I joined Shanghai Pride at the end of 2012 and helped with translation and theatres the following year. I organized Shanghai Pride Theatre Festival from 2014-2015, and work on Brand Management & Communication since 2016.
Why do you think Prides are important? First of all, Prides encourage individuals to be themselves through educational, social, sport and art activities.
Then Prides are festivals which can make the voice louder and help to create awareness and visibility. Also it’s a great platform for partners and communities to get together and to support those who support the community.
What is one (or two) remarkable thing(s) that has/have happened at Shanghai Pride?
Shanghai Pride is entirely organized by volunteers with the support from media, consulates, sponsors and individuals. This year we’ve got over 300 volunteers for 10 days of events.
At the same time, we can see that many local companies are involved to create a diverse workplace or an LGBTQ-friendly venue. This year we work with Out&Equal from the USA to organize China Roundtable which brought over 50 participants together to talk about how to start with a Diversity & Inclusive program in corporations. We talked about how it’s important for colleagues to be allies, to support the community, and how to improve the LGBTQ workplace and attract more talents for the corporation.
This year is the 10th year of pride in Shanghai and we initiate CnPRIDE at this moment with grassroots organizations around Mainland China, that have developed for years and that have the capability to organize a festival or an event for their local community. From May to July, the whole community around the mainland can celebrate TOGETHER!
What do you do when you’re not organizing Shanghai Pride? We all have our full-time job. Besides, we start organizing Shanghai Pride at least 8 months earlier, which means most of the time we are with pride. Currently, we’ve got over 300 volunteers, so it’s a big community, actually. The rest of the time, when we meet, we will still discuss how we can improve our management, event experience, partner relationship to make much influence in Shanghai and make it more diverse. Shanghai Pride has become a super important thing in my life.
What’s one of your favourite pastimes? Reading & travelling.
Is there something you would like to say to the rest of the LGBT+ community? We are not alone, be brave to be yourself!
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Not different, just love
How do you feel when it comes to dealing with our emotions, expectations and responsibilities, around coming out, living as a LGBTIQ+ person and when it comes to our families and love in general?
