Posts Tagged ‘pride’

Every year, the Pride team turn up to Parkrun to cheer people on and hand out free goodies. Last year, I got a pair of rainbow laces, which I was wearing at this year’s Pride Parkrun.

I had a triathlon to so the day after, but I also felt like I was losing fitness. So, I decided to forgo the “take it easy” approach that would involve resting my legs and instead, go hard and hopefully give myself a confidence boost that I was still performing well.

I did and I got it. Thanks to a sprint finish when I realised I might just make it within the minute, I managed to run:

22:58

This is 19 seconds off my personal best, but it is only the second time I have managed to go sub-23 so I was very pleased with it. Did it give me the confidence to smash it at the Allerthorpe Classic triathlon? Find out soon…

Leeds Pride continues to get bigger every year. It used to be that you could rock up to The Headrow and have an entire traffic island to yourself to watch the parade go by. Now, as you can see, the crowds are much bigger.

We weren’t clear if we were supporting Pride, or insensitively flaunting our heterosexuality by waving a baby around…

Craig’s Pride-themed tuba was very impressive, but I didn’t manage to get a good photo…

The 2016 pride parade was pretty standard. There were lots of people marching, it took about 30-40 minutes for the whole parade to pass. A few floats, but these were almost all corporate buses. Lots of people marching against the Tories this year, and I don’t think the Tories themselves turned up at all.

The biggest change this year was the amount of people watching. Typically there are only a few people on The Headrow and you can pretty much have a traffic island or road-side bench to yourself. This year there were people lining the whole way and it was difficult to get a spot.

I love Leeds. It’s the Northern way of doing things. London Pride has barriers all the way down the parade route. In Leeds, you can just wander into the middle of the road, sit on a traffic island, and watch the parade swarm past you on both sides.

Photos from this year’s Pride event. As ever it was an enjoyable day, though the parade was disappointing. I commented last year that there were a lack of floats, and this year there seemed to be even less effort. Still, that should only provide motivation to have a great parade next year – I’ve even got it in my calendar this time, would be great to have a humanism float.

Also, let it never be said that we weren’t doing our bit 😉 .

The first Sunday of August saw Leeds Pride 2011. Everyone likes to see a parade, particularly when it comes right past your house, so as with last year I took plenty of photos. I was a little disappointed by the floats this year, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless.

You can see more photos from the event on Atheist Stock.

Last weekend saw Leeds Pride 2010, stealing many of our members of Humanist Community away for the day – but we’re not bitter or anything 😉 . The event itself was good, there were stalls and some live entertainment though I have to say I was somewhat disappointed by the parade.

Having spent time at Disneyland maybe I expect too much out of parades but Gijsbert noted the same thing – even compared to St. Lois our parade was rather low effort. Most of it was just people walking around, which is rubbish, you want to see floats and coordinated dancing, and costumes. Even the floats that were there were simply people riding around on buses.

Ultimately though it probably comes down to the apathy generated by a lack of marginalisation. Gays are simply not discriminated against in the UK, it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to be gay (as it should be too!) so we simply don’t feel the need to make as much noise as they would in the US for example.

A few things did really amuse me though.

First of all, LGBT Conservatives. Lol.

Also, the fact that there were two different Christian groups – “Christians Together at Pride” and “Some Christians are Gay – Get over it!” Even if something as niche as gay Christians (or Christians suffering from “same sex attraction” as the True Freedom Trust puts it) they still manage to splinter themselves.

You can see loads more photos from Leeds Pride on my Facebook album.