Pride University #4: Proud and loud?

Pride month commemorates the Stonewall riots in 1969, which was the first documented significant uprising, leading to a more vocal gay rights movement. Annual Pride celebrations began a year later in 1970 to commemorate the protests in the US, and today many major cities globally celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride, drawing tens of millions of visitors. Pride month in Amsterdam is one of the biggest Pride events in Europe and the canal parade usually draws more than half a million visitors. However, the Pride organization has received lots of criticisms over the last few years. On the one hand from LGBTQIA+ people themselves, who criticized organization ‘Pride Amsterdam’, which they perceived as less than inclusive to those not ‘male’ and ‘white’. Additionally, the general commercial nature of the event is often lamented, leading to pinkwashing allegations of the corporate sponsors. On the other hand, cisgendered, heterosexuals have also critiqued the event, due to the perceived excessive attention to LGBTQIA+ people.

In this lecture, I discuss how Pride Amsterdam was established and explore the news media on Pride Amsterdam between 2017-2023. I will show how the participating organizations have evolved during the years and how their involvement is portrayed and interpreted in these news publications. The content has been analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis, with special attention to pinkwashing, group processes and intersectionality. The results show a discursive struggle between ‘the establishment’ (i.e. Pride Amsterdam) and ‘the challengers’ (i.e. Queer Amsterdam) about the meaning of Pride Amsterdam. Central questions that divide the groups are: 1) why is Pride important?; 2) for who is Pride?; 3) how can organizations participate in Pride without pinkwashing? I will delve more deeply into these questions during the lecture and connect the outcomes to experimental and qualitative research on attitudes towards Pride.

📅 Date: Thursday, 1 August

🕡 Time: 16:30-18:00

📍Location: The Social Hub Amsterdam City

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