There are no words to express how it feels to move through a European city during Pride Week. To be honest if you are a heterosexual like me you will, by default, reflect on how privileged your sexual orientation is. The ability to live and love freely without a fight is one to cherish in its entirety.
During Pride Week, if you took out money from an ATM you were greeted with the pride flag colours on the screen as you inserted your card. In addition, every clothing shop had some amount of pride-related merchandise or offered discounts for pride. As we walked through the city and took it all in, a friend commented: ‘Pride is money here’. We all agreed but more so because of how important visual representation is towards the fight for LBGT rights. The feeling of inclusion is one which the community lacks terribly in some places.
I didn’t make it to the Pride Walk, but every outing seemed pride-related because of how heavily advertised, merchandised and celebrated it was by both the private and public sector. I felt a pang of pressure to consume something to show solidarity, so I ended up buying a t-shirt from popular British retailer Primark. It had the face of Ru Paul, the famous drag queen on it rocking what it seemed to be a pride-coloured wig.