Pride in London has announced the 2022 parade route, with a monumental number of applications. After a two year hiatus, the 2022 Pride Parade, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the UK’s first Pride march in 1972, is returning to the streets of the capital, with nearly 40,000 applications from all sections of the community and over 400 community groups.
On Saturday, 2 July, the parade will trace the route of the historic 1972 march, passing important sites from the UK’s LGBT+ movement. The parade kicks off at Hyde Park corner, where the first post-march picnic took place in 1972, and where mining communities showed solidarity with the LGBT+ community in 1985. From Hyde Park Corner, the parade continues down Piccadilly, through Piccadilly Circus. Turning south on Haymarket, the parade goes through Trafalgar Square (the terminus for the 1972 March), before culminating at Whitehall Place. To view the route on a map, please visit prideinlondon.org/parade/map.
“For fifty years, Pride has been a visible cultural protest that brings the LGBT+ community and its allies together in solidarity,” said Christopher Joell-Deshields, Executive Director of Pride in London. “It is important to recognise the activists who were brave enough to come out in 1972 to march for our liberation and pave the way for the rights we enjoy today. Early organisers took inspiration from the US civil rights group, the Black Panthers, a reminder that despite their differences there was a collective fight for the oppressed.”
“As we prepare for one of the most momentous LGBT+ pride events in the UK’s history, we are committed to delivering a pride that represents our entire community, including those that have been underrepresented,” said Joell-Deshields.
“Taking the same route that we marched along in 1972 is a historic statement of how far we have come,” said Andrew Lumsden, one of the original members of the Gay Liberation Front. “Pride began all those years ago as a way for us to come out to society and ourselves, and be loud and proud about our LGBT+ identity.”
“Important steps have been made by the community in tackling discrimination of all kinds, however at this monumental 50-year mark it is clear that our mission is not over. There is everything left to do” said Lumsden.
Representing the LGBT+ community in this year’s parade is a diverse range of LGBT+ community groups, from human rights, transgender and gender diverse, HIV advocacy, youth, and sports clubs.
Beyond celebrating the diversity of the LGBT+ community and promoting its visibility, the parade is an occasion of advocacy, with Pride in London calling on the UK Government to:
-
ban conversion therapy for all LGBT+ people;
-
reform the Gender Recognition Act;
-
provide equal protection for LGBT+ communities against hate crime;
-
end its hostile environment toward migrants,
-
establish a national AIDS memorial that acknowledges the impact of HIV and AIDS, honours and remembers those who we have lost
-
take a leading role in tackling violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people around the globe.
Pride in London is holding a community open meeting on 27th April, and a series of drop-in sessions, to share more about the Pride Parade and other plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pride in the UK. Pride in London is looking for enthusiastic people to join the organisation and represent London’s LGBT+ community. Prospective volunteers are encouraged to visit volunteer.prideinlondon.org to sign up.
Parade route map:
