Queen City Pride is an

LGBT pride LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to sham ...

festival, held annually in Regina,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

, Canada. The event is held mid-June each year, normally in the week following

Saskatoon Pride The Saskatoon Pride Festival, commonly shortened to Saskatoon Pride, is an LGBT pride festival held annually in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Organized by the Saskatoon Diversity Network, a non-profit organization incorporated in 2002, the eve ...

. The festival is administered by Regina Pride Inc., a non-profit corporation in the province of Saskatchewan. The event kicks off with a raising of the

rainbow flag A rainbow flag is a multicolored flag consisting of the colors of the rainbow. The designs differ, but many of the colors are based on the spectral colors of the visible light spectrum. The LGBT flag introduced in 1978 is the most recognized u ...

at the

Regina City Hall Queen Elizabeth II Court is the city block containing Regina City Hall, a 16-storey office tower in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The city hall is built in the International Style. Opened in 1976, " e construction manager was Poole Constructio ...

on the Monday of Pride Week,"Backstage pass: Pride out of Prairie prejudice"
''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

'', June 20, 2011. and concludes with a parade and community fair on the Saturday. An estimated 3-4,000 people attend the event each year.

History

The event was first held on June 23 1990, though other pride marches and rallies were held in Regina during the 1970s and 1980s. The police chief refused to sign off on the event, so the march went ahead illegally. Somewhere between 50 and 90 people attended the original event, with some covering their faces out of fear of their identities being known. The 2014 event marked the first time in the city's history that the incumbent mayor,

Michael Fougere Michael Fougere is an American-Canadian politician who served as mayor of Regina, Saskatchewan. He was elected mayor on October 24, 2012 with 42 percent of the vote among nine candidates, running on a platform that included housing, infrastructur ...

, presided over the raising of the rainbow flag to kick off the event. Nearly 2,000 people attended the event in 2017. In 2019, the event's 30th anniversary, the theme was "Growing from Many Voices". The event was canceled in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. The event went forward in a limited capacity in 2021, and fully returned in person in 2022, with the theme "Together Again".

References

External links

Queen City Pride
Pride parades in Canada Festivals in Regina, Saskatchewan LGBT in Saskatchewan 1990 establishments in Saskatchewan {{LGBT-event-stub