From the Bloody Pride to today: 25 years of marching under the same slogan

When the march sets off from Manjež Park at 5 p.m. today, it will carry the same slogan as a quarter of a century ago: “There Is Room for All of Us.” Those were the words of Serbia’s first Pride in 2001 — a gathering remembered as the “Bloody Pride.”

On that day, as the organizers recall, “hundreds of hooligans demolished the city center and beat the handful of participants, while the police were too few and unable to protect them.”

Years of silence followed. An attempt to hold Pride in 2009 was called off after threats of violence; the 2010 march went ahead amid massive riots by hooligans who burned and vandalized central Belgrade; and for the next three years the state banned the event outright.

Pride returned to the streets in 2014 and has, as the organizers note, “been held regularly for more than a decade, despite a heavy police presence and the attempted ban of EuroPride in 2022.”

Yet 25 years on, the reasons to protest have not gone away: not one of Belgrade Pride’s eight demands has been met, and the community is still waiting for key legislation — the law on same-sex partnerships and the law on gender identity and the rights of intersex people. Public space, organizers warn, is too often dominated by hate speech, homophobia and transphobia, while physical violence is more present than in previous years.

“Only a society with room for all people can be a society of justice, democracy and human rights, in which everyone belongs and everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential,” Belgrade Pride says.

A quarter of a century later, the community is taking to the same streets with the same message. Not because nothing has changed — but because not enough has.

Source: Belgrade Pride, Beta. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.