Gay Pride in Budapest

So I went to a lot of events for pride week, most of which were good. The first event I tried to go to was one of the few English language workshops, but it was cancelled (it was about the challenges including people who are trans and genderqueer in the movement and how it could improve, but the event was taken off the website so I cant give more details than that). On the plus side a Canadian girl was also bummed about missing it was there and so we decided to walk around finding all the art exhibits for pride that were up instead. I became really good friends with her so later when there was an art exhibition opening I went with her, a friend of hers and two couchsurfers and it worked out really well! The art wasn’t what I was looking for, but it was still a really cool atmosphere and later we went to a pub and sat around and talked until nearly 4 am.

I also went to an event called “rape culture in gay culture" against my better judgement. It was fucking crazy. The woman who led it was a psychoanalyst with crazy viewpoints. She basically was of the opinion that our parents traumatize us and this causes us to be gay or straight (not that either one is better than the other in her opinion, but still) and that gay people have tons of sex because we’re all rape victims. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW SHE WAS ALLOWED IN. WTF?!

Then I went to a free movie screening of the movie “Milk" yesterday with Harvey Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk heading a discussion on the events of the film and its inaccuracies. I really enjoyed it.

After that I went to “women’s pride" at Club New Orleans (!!!!) with my new friends. There was a very strange, but cool burlesque show and then we danced for a bunch of hours for the equivalent of less than $5.

Then today was the march! I went with two of my new coworkers. I had heard that essentially we would be caged in and wouldn’t be able to leave so I was a bit afraid of missing my work shift at 7 but it worked out. Despite being a huge parade, it was a bit sad that anyone watching the parade from the street would be unable to see it due to the fact we were blocked off to stop fucking NAZIS from attacking us (it felt a bit like time travelling). Apparently they publically announced that they have a list of people to target called a “faggot’s list" which is essentially everyone who said they were attending the parade on facebook. To which I say good luck finding a girl named “Maggle Magpie" completely covered in blue and purple paint…I’m sure that will work out well for them. But anyway the parade! It was great. Everyone had balloons with little cards attatched that we could wtite messages of hope on and then we released them into the air. I was overwhelmed by how beautiful it all was, but also how much fun the music and people were. I was really sad I had to cut it short for my shift, but oh well. Overall, I had an amazing pride I wont soon forget. I hope you all did too!!!