Belgium

Every year, Brussels Pride is organised on the Saturday closest to May 17, to mark the importance of fighting homophobia, biphobia and transphobia even in contexts which might appear supportive of sexual and gender diversity.

100,000 attend Brussels Pride on May 17, 2014

This year, the event, labelled ‘PRIDE4every1″ gathered a 100,000-strong crowd, making it the biggest Belgium Pride march ever, and also the biggest single IDAHOT event this year.

In the Francophone provinces, IDAHOT has been marked for many years now with education campaigns for diversity, lead by regional educational authorities and the umbrella LGBT federation Arc en Ciel Wallonie.

The organisation Alliage had sent the 84 municipalities of the province rainbow flags to be raised on May 17 in a invitation to “show that the municipality is rich of its diversities and proud of them”. 33 of the 84 municipalities raised the flag. More information and details, including a map of the participating counties, can be accessed on the site of the organisation Alliage and a photo album has been set up on Facebook.

33 municipal authorities fly the rainbow flag in Belgium’s Francophone regions for IDAHOT 2014.

In the Flemish provinces, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia saw an unprecedented level of participation. Reporting from the Çavaria LGBT federation:

259 municipalities in Flanders and Brussels participated out of 327 (79%). Also, all the districts of the city of Antwerp participated as well as all the Flemish provinces. Besides flying the rainbow flag a lot of municipalities organized events for IDAHOT, had articles about it in their info magazines, and so on.

Our goal was to make lgbt issues visible from the biggest cities to the smallest villages. The physical presence of the rainbow flag at city halls, public libraries and other public buildings sent out the message that the local government is an ally for lgbt rights. However, the action was not only symbolic. We (or our member organizations) contacted every municipality in Flanders and Brussels, thus opening a channel for dialogue. Some municipalities that didn’t participate are open to working with us on lgbt inclusiveness.

You can find the most recent article (in Dutch) and photos here.

On IDAHOT and the Belgian Pride we also had a campaign about tackling homophobia in sports called Sports4Every1. 11 famous Belgian sportspeople spoke out against homophobia. You can find the pictures and videos they made here  . The campaign was commissioned by the Department of Equal Opportunities of the Flemish Government.