"Sofia Pride" 2024 is the biggest event in the protection of human rights in Bulgaria. The focus of this year's edition is the role of LGBTI+ people in Bulgaria for the development of modern Bulgarian society.
The scene of "Sofia Pride" again gives young artists from the community the opportunity to perform and sing in front of thousands, together with some of the biggest stars of Bulgarian music.
"Sofia Pride" is held for the 17th year in a row. According to the organizers, understanding of the community's problems is growing, more and more people are being exposed, and this is changing views. But still, a large part of the problems of LGBTI+ people in Bulgaria remain unsolved. Foremost among these is the legal regulation of same-sex partnerships, which continues to be a focus in the work of those involved in community issues in the coming years, as well as in this edition of Pride.
The organizers remind that lesbians, gay men, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) have always been part of society. Throughout human history, however, these groups have been subjected to various forms and degrees of oppression - from rejection by the people closest to them, through religious stigmatization and pseudoscientific medicalization of "otherness" them, to prosecution by the law. Many forms of this oppression continue to exist today, unnoticed by those who do not belong to any of these groups.
Pride's primary and short-term goal is to counteract the forces and mechanisms of this oppression and, ultimately, liberate LGBTI people, not simply by treating them equally regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but by accepting by society and improving the lives of people who live with all kinds of queer identities.
Pride has the potential to achieve this by raising the visibility of the otherwise obscured and marginalized bearers of these identities and thereby, on the one hand, empowering them to be who they would feel happy to be, and on the other hand, as generated public debate and attacked the mechanisms of oppression expressed in prejudice and discrimination.
With its visibility, pride reveals the LGBTI communities as a legitimate part of society - Bulgarian voters and taxpayers, who have the need and right to present their problems to the empowered and demand their resolution. The necessary changes in state policy towards LGBTI minorities are within the competence of the legislative and executive powers. Among them are recognition of the higher public danger of crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or gender expression, by introducing into the Penal Code qualified compositions for acts committed with such motives.
The organizers are fighting to strengthen the guarantees of protection against discrimination and protection against other violations of fundamental human rights through the signing and ratification by Bulgaria of Protocol No. 12 and Protocol No. 16 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms . They insist on effective prevention and fight against domestic and gender-based violence in relation to all victims without exception, including victims in the families of same-sex couples, as well as bringing Bulgarian legislation in line with the best international standards in this field.
They want public, clear and clearly articulated political declarations from the political parties represented in parliament, condemning hate speech based on sexual orientation or gender identity and declaring a commitment to work together with vulnerable communities of LGBTI people on the problems and violations of fundamental rights of these communities documented by national and international human rights organizations.
Another struggle of Pride is the introduction of a clear, maximally simplified and financially accessible administrative procedure for changing the civil sex by the civil status authorities, which trans and intersex people need, as well as inclusion in the curricula of general education subjects in the school education system of current and scientific information concerning LGBTI people.
Earlier today, there was also a procession of the traditional Christian family, Christian values. Its participants see a threat to the traditional family not only in Sofia Pride or LGBT, but also in the enormous consequences of industrialization, urbanization, accelerated economic development, modern education and consumerism, which have had a crushing effect on the family in the West and in general in the entire post-industrial world.