ABSTRACT
On the basis of interviews and secondary sources, Chapter 2 traces the historical trajectories and ritual traditions of Pride events in the Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The Pride events studied all bear their unique histories. The original impetus may have come from the US, but the notion of an annual ritual parade has been translated within the specific cultural and political contexts where they have been adopted. For sure there are similarities, but also distinctive variations. First, the length of the tradition and its degree of institutionalization varies across the countries in our sample, with some Pride traditions, like the UK’s, harking back to the early 1970s and others, like the Czech Republic’s, which started around 2010. Second, traditions become institutionalized and self-perpetuating – the major parade cities, the route, and which actors typically organize the event. Third, the history of the LGBT movement and its main political strategies and focal issues also has consequences for form and content of the parades. In terms of international dissemination, we identified two rather distinct “waves” in the spread of the Pride tradition. The first can be dated to the 1970s in the aftermath of Stonewall and Gay Liberation and appears to have involved very little active promotion from any centralized actors. The second wave came in the 1990s with the establishment of international events like EuroPride in 1992 and WorldPride in 2000 and the concomitant promotion of the unifying label “Pride.”
