National GLBT Pride 2008 in Bologna

I am back from a long and tiring journey in Mongolia. I still need to sort out hundreds of pictures that I took during this trip and to write a blog-post about it.

 

Back in Bologna, I was right in time for the annual national Gay-Lesbian_Bisexual_Transsexual (GLBT) pride march that was held here today.

 

It was a huge rally and people had come from all over Italy with floats blaring music and showing dances or other body assets, as is usual in LGBTQ events.

 

It was lot of fun and I marched with the parade in the last part, starting from Salara where the Arci-gay and Arci-lesbica of Bologna have their office, up to Piazza 8 Agosto, where the parade concluded. I had asked Nadia to come with me, it is a question of human rights I had told her, but she thought that it was too hot and probably it was going to be too noisy, so finally I went alone.

 

Nadia was right, it was very noisy with loud music and lot of young persons drinking and dancing. There were gay couples and there were lesbian couples. Some even had their children with them. There were also transsexuals and transgender persons. There were sex-workers with red parasols. And there were lot of hetero couples and even persons in wheel-chairs as well.

 

In Piazza 8 Agosto there were speeches by presidents of different LGBTQ organisations. I liked the speech by the President of MIT (Association of Transsexuals and Transgender persons). "Even among the different alternate sexuality identities, we are forgotten and discriminated", she said. I also liked her reference to the often forgotten "human right to orgasm".

 

There were other human rights organisations as well. For example, those talking of immigrants and gypsy (Rom) children. There were some South Asian looking men but I don't know if they were there to express their right to sexuality or only for curiosity. I didn't see any south Asian looking women in the march.

 

 

 

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