History of Pride
Stonewall Inn riots
The first pride parades were a commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots, a protest of LGBT people against police raids and violence against trans and gay people, that was commonplace at the time.
In the morning hours of 28 June 1969, the police came into Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York, to conduct a routine raid among the visitors, who were mostly LGBT. The raid procedure was the following: close premises, place visitors in a row, arrest men dressed in women’s clothes, verify their identity.
But that raid turned out otherwise. The bar patrons who were released and by-standers gathered in crowds in front of the bar and the confrontation of the arrested patrons with the police created a riot.
This marks one of the first uprisings of the LGBT community and its supporters against police violence. In the following years, the number of activists who celebrated the memory of these events grew. Today, the pride parades take place across the globe.
History of Pride in Slovenia
The first pride parade in Slovenia was organised in response to the events in Café Galerija in the center of Ljubljana. On 8 June 2001, the poets Brane Mozetič and Jean-Paul Daoust were prevented from entering the café with the explanation that they are not welcome there because of their sexual orientation. After the goverment did not condemn the act, people gathered and started the a protest. Over the next few Fridays, they would meet in a cafe, occupy vacant tables, order mineral water and drink it as slowly as possible with the goal of reducing the owner’s profit.
A month later, the protest was followed by demonstration “Bypass against intolerance” organised by LGBT activists and supporters. That 6 July 2001, would later be remembered as the first annual Ljubljana Pride.