Hong Kong: More than 12,000 members of the LGBT community, their family and friends attended have attended Hong Kong’s first Pink Dot festival to celebrate diversity and equality.
The event took place at Hong Kong’s waterfront Tamar Park on June 15, according to fridae.asia.
It took on a Mardi Gras type atmosphere with people wearing different shades of pink and partaking in an afternoon of picnics and fun-fair game replete with street performances, photo and henna tattoos booths, calligraphy, tarot reading, craft workshops, live music, and general merriment.
The Pink Dot campaign is a non-profit movement, free-for-all event which started in 2009, in support of the LGBT community in Singapore where same-sex relations are illegal.
The event was held for the first time in Hong Kong with the help of three local organizations — Pink Alliance, Big Love Alliance and the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs Association of Hong Kong.
There was also a free concert featuring Anthony Yiu-ming Wong, Denise Ho, Alex To, C AllStar, Jing Wong, Lil’ Ashes, MC Yan, Shine, Ellen Loo, and Vincci Cheuk.
Highlights included the formation of a human ‘pink dot’ and a ‘visit’ by Hong Kong celebrity and LGBT advocate Gigi Chao on her helicopter.
Gigi, the lesbian daughter of Hong Kong billionaire property tycoon made headlines recently when she told her father “I’ll marry a man when you do” after he offered to pay HK $1billion to (US$150m) to any man who would marry her and turn her straight.
“We are more than thrilled by the turnout and the atmosphere of the inaugural Pink Dot,” Brian Leung, Chief Campaigner of Big Love Alliance and one of the two conveners of the project told fridae.asia.
“We wanted a fun family event for all and I think we got it! We would like to thank everyone who made this dream come true.”
The event is seen as a milestone in furthering equality rights in Hong Kong because the city still harbors prejudices against the LGBT community and discrimination on the basis of sexuality is not banned in Hong Kong although same-sex relations were de-criminalized in 1991.
You can watch a short video clip of the Hong Kong Pink Dot gathering here
Source – Gay Asia News
