ParaPride 2023 London

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ParaPride takes place on Saturday the 24th February 2024.

The Council launched its Hackney Pride 365 festival to celebrate the borough’s historic, diverse and boundary-breaking LGBTQIA+ community in 2017. The festival runs all year, every year, with community-led events – that include everything from gardening clubs to club nights, picnics to film screenings, history walks to business events – at some of Hackney’s most popular venues and outdoor spaces. In April 2018, three people motivated to change the experience and conversation surrounding people with disabilities in the LGBTQ community joined forces to explore the potential of a new organisation, focused on this issue.

They had initially just planned to create more visibility and easier access for people with disabilities at existing Pride festivals. However, the scope quickly evolved, and soon the team realised the need for a new platform to enhance the overall social experience of people with disabilities. This is when ParaPride was born.

People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the effects of homophobia and transphobia and are frequently the victims of harassment, abuse and violence. This is an incredibly isolating experience and existence. We recognise that all members of the LGBTQ community need to be enabled to participate in order to help to combat these effects, as well as to combat the social exclusion that surrounds having a disability more generally.

ParaPride believes that everyone is entitled to engage with the LGBTQ community, to build relationships, have fun and feel included in the activities presented to it.
People with disabilities have traditionally been unintentionally excluded from the LGBTQ experience. With the support of Hackney Council and Hackney Pride365, we are very excited to be holding this event in the vibrant and wonderfully diverse London borough of Hackney.

ParaPride will be making LGBTQ+ history by presenting the largest showcase of disabled LGBTQ+ talent with a spectacular line-up of creative acts. This will include Comedy, Drag Kings & Queens, Aerial artists, Pole performers, Burlesque shows, DJ sets and more.