Dhaka Pride is an annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival highlighting the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, and celebrating the courage, dignity, diversity, and resilience of LGBTIQ+ people from Bangladesh and across the Bangladeshi diaspora. Held online on the first Friday of June, Dhaka Pride is the only publicly accessible Pride event in Bangladesh and provides a vital platform for visibility, expression, solidarity, and human rights advocacy.
Dhaka Pride was introduced in 2020 during Covid-19, when various pride events were taking place online and officially launched in 2021 by Inclusive Bangladesh alongside the Copenhagen Worldpride 2021. Since then, it has continued as an annual virtual Pride celebration, bringing together LGBTIQ+ community members, artists, activists, allies, and partner organisations from Bangladesh and around the world. Due to the legal, social, and security challenges faced by LGBTIQ+ people in Bangladesh, the main Pride festival is not held as an offline public event. Instead, Dhaka Pride has built a courageous and groundbreaking digital model that allows Pride to reach people safely across Bangladesh and beyond.
Alongside its annual online Pride festival, Dhaka Pride also organises and supports various in-person and creative initiatives throughout the year, including exhibitions, human rights forums, art showcases, Pride publications, community gatherings, and thematic cultural events.
These activities create meaningful opportunities for local Bangladeshi LGBTIQ+ community members, artists, advocates, and allies to participate, share their stories, build solidarity, and increase the visibility of LGBTIQ+ lives, rights, and experiences within and beyond the community.
At its heart, Dhaka Pride is more than a festival. It is a statement of hope, resistance, and belonging. In a country where many LGBTIQ+ people are forced to live with silence, stigma, and fear, Dhaka Pride creates spaces where people can come together, express themselves, celebrate identity, and raise awareness about equality, dignity, and human rights.
Inclusive Bangladesh currently serves as the host organisation of Dhaka Pride, coordinating the event with partner organisations from Bangladesh and international Pride movements. Dhaka Pride delegates also take part in Pride events around the world, including WorldPride, to strengthen global visibility, solidarity, and representation for Bangladeshi LGBTIQ+ communities.
Operating in a highly hostile environment with oppressive laws and social barriers, Dhaka Pride stands as a beacon of hope and a blueprint for LGBTIQ+ organisations in countries where public Pride celebrations cannot be safely held offline. By taking Pride into the digital space while also creating carefully designed community-based cultural and human rights initiatives, Dhaka Pride ensures that love, dignity, equality, and community can reach every corner of Bangladesh and connect Bangladeshi LGBTIQ+ people with the wider global Pride movement.
Dhaka Pride is a proud member of InterPride, the International Organisation of Pride Organisers, and remains committed to promoting the human rights, visibility, creativity, and dignity of Bangladeshi LGBTIQ+ people worldwide.
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