International Pride Month: Austria Wears Rainbow Colors
In June, Austria will celebrate the LGBTIQ community by hosting numerous events. One of these events will be the Vienna Rainbow Parade on June 19. Read more about this event and how President Van der Bellen supports the LGBTIQ community.
The Vienna Pride will celebrate its comeback in 2021 after the event had to be held online last year. / Picture: © Diplomats for Equality
Austria will use the month of June to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) community with various events and show solidarity with the often times discriminated community by hanging up rainbow-colored flags.
As an example, the balcony on the Heldenplatz side of the Austrian Presidential Chancellery has become a rainbow balcony. President Alexander Van der Bellen and his wife, Doris Schmidauer, are thus setting a visible sign of solidarity in the fight for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer people.
According to a press release by the Austrian Presidency, Van der Bellen stated: "Human rights form the basis for dignity and respect in our society. Human rights are indivisible. Doris and I wish: Happy Pride!"
Vienna Pride
In Vienna, the 25th Vienna Rainbow Parade will take place on June 19 as foot and bicycle demonstration.
According to a press release by the City of Vienna, after a year in the shadow of Covid-19, the LGBTIQ community celebrates its comeback under the motto "Stay safe, stay proud". Vienna Pride takes place this year from June 7-20 with the 25th Vienna Rainbow Parade on June 19.
"Especially in times of crisis like these, visibility, joie de vivre and strong togetherness are all the more important, as is standing up together for visibility, respect and equal rights," says Katharina Kacerovsky-Strobl, organizer of Vienna Pride. "And for this togetherness, we will take to the streets on June 19 for the now 25th time with the Rainbow Parade."
The 25th Vienna Rainbow Parade will start at 2 p.m. in front of the Rathausplatz or Burgtheater, march once the other way around the Ring, i.e. against the direction of travel, and arrive back at 5 p.m. at the Rathausplatz, where the final rally with speeches by activists and politicians will take place. This time, the Rainbow Parade will deliberately go back to its roots, namely completely on foot or by bicycle, i.e. without trucks, as in the first Vienna Rainbow Parade in 1996.
Kacerovsky-Strobl explains: "After the great success of last year's digital Global Pride with over 57 million viewers worldwide, we built on the concept and created a mixed program (digital and on-site) this time - especially for those people who could not (yet) get vaccinated and still want to be there digitally."
So in addition to on-site events like the Vienna City Beach Club and Tel Aviv Beach Days, book tables at the Vienna Main Library, a Pride cinema on the rooftop and Pride brunches in community venues, this time there will also be digital tours in cooperating museums like the Albertina and the Mumok, online medical lectures, online discussions or workshops by and with the LGBTIQ community, as well as several DJ and band live stream evenings directly from the club.