ABSTRACT
On July 8 2000, World Pride Roma, the inaugural world Pride festival, attracted somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 participants comprising gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers, transgendered people, and their friends and supporters. The festival, which ran for a week, included conferences, dance parties, exhibitions, and a host of other social, cultural, and political events as well as the parade itself (Eglund, 2000; Luongo, 2002). Held to coincide with the Great Jubilee of the Catholic Church, World Pride Roma provoked strident and vigorous criticism from the Vatican. Pope John Paul II was reported as having stated: “In the name of the Church of Rome, I cannot fail to express bitterness for the affront to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 and for the offence to Christian values in a city that is so dear to the heart of Catholics around the world” (Ferrisi, 2000). World Pride Roma, with its volatile mix of politics, celebrations, art, and activism, is emblematic of how leisure spaces opened up by festivals help to subvert heteronormativity and sustain counterhegemonic identities from New York to Sydney, Bangkok to Vancouver.
