ABSTRACT
On the one hand, some Pride parade performances transgressively challenge the dominant sexual and gender norms in society, on the other hand, participants perform in ways that will communicate that they are worthy, committed, and determined to achieve acceptance and inclusion in the wider political and cultural community. This chapter explores this ostensible paradox by analyzing the performances of Pride in the different political and cultural contexts of seven European countries (Czech Republic, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK) and Mexico. The chapter investigates how Pride parades engage with others and perform their collective identities and their political messages, together with their visions for the future. In general the degree of LGBT friendliness, or unfriendliness, of the local and national context of Prides has a considerable impact on Pride performances as well as organizers’ strategic considerations. On LGBT friendly scenes with Pride organizers dedicated to promoting inclusivity, both an identity strategy of critique, emphasizing difference to the straight majority, and an identity strategy of education, accentuating similarities with the majority are deployed – merging radicals with moderates. In these contexts Pride parades bring together the performances of politics and the carnivalesque more or less seamlessly. On LGBT unfriendly and less friendly scenes Pride organizers and participants alike are more concerned with performances of representation that emphasize the movement’s worthiness, and subsequently, indirectly, the “normality” of the demonstrators.
