Thousands of people celebrated Pride in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi as full-scale celebrations returned for the first time since 2019.
Hanoi Pride Week took place from September 19 to 25 and saw members of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies take part in workshops, screenings and festivals.
The week culminated with a parade which saw thousands of attendees take to the streets of the city for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than two years ago.
People waved LGBTQ+ Pride flags alongside the country’s national one, while others danced and chanted positive slogans.
To get this year’s celebrations started, ambassadors from Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland met with LGBTQ+ activists and advocates in Vietnam to discuss what they would like to see from the country in the future.
As has been the case in previous years, the British Embassy was the main sponsor for the Hanoi Pride festival last week.
Iain Frew, the British Ambassador to Vietnam, spoke at one of the Pride stages on the afternoon of 25 September, the BBC reported.
He is said to have given a speech about the right to freedom, gender equality and love more generally before sharing a story about his husband – something which made some of the crowd very emotional.
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