A Taiwanese delegation of almost 50 people on Sunday attended the LA Pride Parade, joining more than 100,000 people marching in the streets of Los Angeles.
The 55th annual LA Pride Parade started its nearly 2km march from Hollywood Boulevard, filling the streets with music and rainbow flags.
The Tourism Administration-sponsored group of Taiwanese marched with a float featuring “Taiwan” in large letters and decorated with iconic Taiwanese motifs, including the Formosan black bear, bubble tea and Kaohsiung’s Dragon and Tiger Pagodas.
Photo: CNA
A group of Miss Taiwanese American pageant winners waved to cheering crowds from the float.
Among them, Celine Huang (黃韻容) said that “Taiwan is an open, free and accepting country.”
“We are all so proud to demonstrate these values here” at today’s event, she said.
Rainy Dayz, Miss LA Pride at this year’s parade, said she knew Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage thanks to the advocacy of Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅).
Nymphia, the drag persona of Leo Tsao (曹米駬), last year became the first Taiwanese to win Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
Taiwan deserves high praise, Rainy Dayz added.
Parade-goers were celebrating equality and inclusivity, Rainy Dayz said, adding that pride is a form of protest, to tell the world the LGBTQ+ community is united and that every person has a the right to love and love whomever they want.
Separately on Saturday, crowds holding rainbow flags marched in Washington, the host of this year’s WorldPride, to mark the 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations in the US capital.
WorldPride started in late May with three weeks of events planned by the Capital Pride Alliance, a nonprofit group that holds year-round LGBTQ+ Pride festivities in Washington and the region.
Washington initially lost the bid to host WorldPride to Kaohsiung in November 2021, but the Taiwanese preparation committee in August 2022 announced it would not host the event after license-holder InterPride demanded that “Taiwan” be removed from the event’s name.
At the time, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee said that InterPride gave it “abrupt notice” to use “Kaohsiung” instead of “Taiwan,” even though the group applied for the event using “Taiwan” in its name.
Kaohsiung Pride, which takes place on the last Saturday in November, had proposed holding the 2025 WorldPride event in October, as the country’s largest pride event — the Taiwan LGBT Pride+ parade in Taipei — is held on the last Saturday of that month.
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