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LBGTQ people in India have held their first Pride parade since the end of a gay sex ban.

The streets of capital city Delhi turned all the colours of the rainbow on Sunday (25 November), as India held its first Pride parade since the historic decriminalisation of homosexuality in September this year.

Thousands of LGBTQ people and their allies joined in the Delhi Queer Pride Parade celebrations, with many holding signs reading “Love wins” and “Adios 377”.

Parade organisers said it was the largest march since 2007, when the parade began.

“It’s the first time we are not marching as criminals,” said Deepti, one of the organisers from the Delhi Queer Pride Group, to SBS News. “People are marching with freedom and zero burden.”

The successful Pride parade comes after India’s Supreme Court overturned a colonial-era law, Section 377 on the Indian penal code, which penalised intercourse “against the order of nature” with a sentence of life imprisonment.

Section 377 was rarely enforced in full on LGBTQ citizens, but lawyers had argued that it contributed to a culture of repression and fear amongst India’s LGBTQ community.

Check out photos of the Pride parade from social media below.

https://twitter.com/KarnikaKohli/status/1066651319837093888

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