Pride

Sometimes I wonder how many layers of memories people have for certain locations if they have lived in one place their whole lives. What I know for sure now is that the Rua Dom Pedro V going from the Miradouro Sao Pedro de Alcantara to Baixa Chiado is glued to the Pride parade 2018 in my mind. Me and my lovely flatmates Amanda and Vici crushed into it by sheer chance. Until now it was the most fun procession I have seen in Lisbon (it’s a pride parade, of course it’s crazy and fun, duh). This type of event is something new and very special for me. I was raised in a quite (very?) homophobic society in which calling a man homosexual is considered one of the worst insults. I have spent hours and hours of my life discussing gay rights with people of different gender, age, origin and cultural background.  I have heard so various opinions ranging from “I don’t really care” to “Only straight is normal, end of conversation” so eager to figure out why exactly these beliefs landed in the heads of the people I was talking to. These conversations mostly feel like beating my head against the wall as it is close to impossible to change someone’s beliefs about world overnight.

I think what many people don’t understand is that if you are LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) it takes courage to be yourself in public. It takes courage to do many things that straight people take for granted since you never know how people would react, if you would loose friends, if people you know would start acting weird in your company or would start avoiding you. Therefore being able to be a part of rainbow-colored crowd celebrating not only the acceptance of the LGBT community but also the pride of being part of it is actually a very big deal.