Visible Pride Around The World in 2021

N. Ghoshal, S. Moazami, L. Veado

This report focuses primarily on events that activists identified as "Pride," but also includes other events aimed at advancing public visibility of LGBTIQ people, queer cultures, and human rights issues affecting LGBTIQ communities. It centers around seven country case studies - the Bahamas, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Ghana, Malawi, and Rwanda - where Pride events were new or notable in 2021, or, in the case of Ghana, where heightened repression made Pride impossible to celebrate. The case studies use Pride as a steppingstone to examine broader legal, political, and social dynamics in the seven countries. In this report, OutRight also tracks the proliferation of visibility events around the world, providing data on countries in which Pride events were held in 2021 - at least 107 countries, a notable increase over previously tracked data, despite obstacles posed by COVID-19. The report also provides data on countries in which Pride is celebrated outside capital cities, an important step for many movements. A multiplicity of Pride locations reinforces that LGBTIQ people are everywhere, and dispels the myth that queerness is restricted to cosmopolitan, urban elites.