Tokyo Rainbow Pride week is the largest annual LGBTQ celebration in Japan. This year, all throughout Golden Week, from April 27 through May 6, there were various parties, parades and conferences dedicated to this year’s theme, “I have pride.”
When I walked through the festival, I got a snapshot of LGBTQ’s fight against systemic discrimination in Japan. They want the right to marry. They want to be protected against employers that fire or refuse to hire people based on sexual orientation. By the looks of Rainbow Pride’s growing success, they have a lot of momentum. A record high number of 52 groups took part in the event. On April 28, the day of the parade, more than 100,000 members of the gay community and their supporters gathered at Shibuya’s Yoyogi Park with 10,000 proud marchers participating in the parade. Read More
