Rain on Delight Parade: Occasions have modified since 2014 after I made a big set of images at first of London’s annual Homosexual Delight on Saturday 28 June. Again in 2014 I used to be capable of stroll round freely and meet and {photograph} these collaborating earlier than the parade began. The color photos listed below are all from that occasion, the place there have been some brief however heavy showers as folks gathered.
I don’t suppose I had really bothered to use for accreditation, although I did on some earlier years, as I didn’t intend to {photograph} the precise parade. However in 2017 safety across the occasion was stepped up and it grew to become obligatory for everybody to have utilized for permission to participate to get close to.
I’d first photographed Delight in 1993 and it was then a really completely different occasion. Delight was then a protest and a defiant gesture, whereas now it has turn out to be a corporate-dominated homosexual parade.
I used to be happy when a few of these images have been proven as part of the exhibition Queer is Right here on the Museum of London in 2006 and a bigger set at at ‘Altering the World’, a Homosexual and Lesbian Historical past and Archives Convention at London Metropolitan Archives in 2005.
These photos have been in black and white, although I believe I may additionally have taken some in color, but to be re-discovered in my archives, and so they lined the ten years from 1993-2002. You may view a set on-line, although there are tons of extra in my recordsdata. These embrace a small quantity from Delight 1998, which in keeping with Wikipedia didn’t occur.
In 2017 I had determined to {photograph} the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc who had joined the official parade in 2016. However in 2017 they have been refused entry and as an alternative – as I put it – “reclaimed Delight as protest, gate-crashing the route at Oxford Circus and marching in entrance of the official parade alongside the route lined by cheering crowds.”
This could have been the huge story about that day’s Delight, however hardly made the information, and I believe was completely ignored by the BBC – and doesn’t even get a point out within the Wikipedia article.
After this I made a decision to not cowl Delight in 2018, going as an alternative to {photograph} a march towards the closure of acute amenities at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals in south London whereas it was taking place. The next Saturday I went the next week to {photograph} the third Croydon Delight Procession, a a lot smaller and friendlier occasion.
In 2019 I went to Regent’s Park the place folks have been making ready to affix on the tip of the massive Delight Parade as a Queer Liberation March in protest towards the rising company nature of Delight.
They included some LGBT teams unable to afford the charges to participate within the official parade, however principally folks have been there as a result of they felt it very important to get again nearer to the origins of Delight, which started with the Stonewall riots 50 years in the past led by trans ladies of color.
I needed to depart nicely earlier than they set off to affix the parade. The did finally handle to take action, however needed to power their well past the Delight stewards. The police had initially tried to cease them however then determined they needed to be allowed to march.
Delight was cancelled in each 2020 and 2021. On July 1st 2022 I photographed the Homosexual Liberation Entrance UK commemorating their first London Homosexual Delight March 50 years in the past marching via London on precisely the identical hour and date. London Delight 2022 came about the next day however I went elsewhere.
Extra photos from Delight 2014 on My London Diary at Rain on Delight Parade.
Tags: Anti-Racist bloc, Chelsea Manning, Croydon Delight, Homosexual Liberation Entrance, homosexual pleasure, Lesbians and Gays, London, march, Migrants Rights, museum of london, peter Marshall, Delight, Delight 1998, Delight 2014, Delight London, protest, Queer is Right here, Queer Liberation March, Stonewall riots, Help The Miners, transgender, Ladies of Color
You may depart a response, or trackback from your individual web site.
