Event - Pride Parade 2026
Love the person you fall in love with.. and be happy if that person loves you back.
Be the person you feel you are.. and live your life in peace and in harmony with the world.
Is the situation good if you have to copy the main body of text from last years' events? If a situation is good, it's a good sign. If a sitation is dire or even sketchy.. then..
Never forget that a Pride is actually a protest march to make you remember that there are compatriots of yours struggling to have the same rights & possibilities as you just because they refuse to hide their true feelings & their true self in the bottom drawer of a dark closet like so many did before them in order to comply with a general opinion that was imposed on people by several dogmatic, patriarchal religions and authoritarian politicians. (and their following)
A Pride is about being persecuted for doing no wrong to anyone else. About making choices that matter to yourself and no-one else should feel bothered by. It's about humans who are being denied basic human rights. About a lack of fundamental freedom. About people who need to defend themselves from haters. Who often have to fight to get the same possibilities as non-LGBTQIA+ people.
Maybe it's because I prefer being in the company of open-minded, creative people and as a result I feel less in touch with the increasingly emerging religious zealots & ideologically simplistic souls who fear anything outside their strict lines, but to me things are very simple: all human beings deserve the same rights, duties, protections and opportunities. And every single human needs to protect the planet, the animals & living things on Earth. Period.
Before scrolling to the pictures:
▶️ All photos can always be found on/downloaded from my Flickr and here!
▶️ A "How to download stills from Flickr" tutorial was posted here.
▶️ Some highlights might go to Instagram, Threads or Bluesky.
▶️ A video might go to Clapper & to Tiktok
▶️ Buy Red Cathedral a whisky on Ko-Fi
▶️ Updates are on THE Facebook.
▶️ Give a follow to this young creative foundation: Deep Red Noise vzw/asbl (incl. a Tiktok account & an Instagram account)
▶️ If
you want an inclusive store & community hub to buy and enjoy a tabletop RPG, a wargame, some
card- or boardgames at one of our tables with a mead or a ramune, or to
find some very niche novels (and comics), then support the project: House of the Red Merlin , coming to Tongeren. (Read everything on the mock-up page, check the intended genres and give us your feedback. Planned opening: October 2026 or January 2027)
The full gallery (Click on the arrows on the side to scroll):
UPDATE: 3% of all photos from Hasselt have been processed + uploaded.
UPDATE: 0% of all photos from Antwerpen have been processed + uploaded.
The pedometer showed over 12k steps, but it isn't the distance you march that matters most; it's the people you travel with, the sights you see (and/or hear, smell, taste, feel,..) and the things you learn during that journey that really count.
PS. If you're interested in short testimonials about LGBTQIA+ in the cosplay community, then watch, like and share the short Instagram/Tiktok videos we filmed last Summer in the Japanese Garden of Hasselt: right HERE
Last year's gallery (Click on the arrows on the side to scroll):
A direct link to this article: https://tinyurl.com/Prides2026
Since all spare time is going into the planning for the specialty store I'm missing all Summer cosplay events. But I might do a quick visit to Geek Village Summer at the castle of Heks.. simply because it's at 7km from home.
Namaste
