Thousands take part in sixth annual Tokyo Pride Parade

Aug 11, 2007, 8:07 GMT

Tokyo - Some 3,000 people took their pride of being gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender to the streets of Tokyo Saturday and led the annual Pride Parade.

Numerous floats decorated in rainbow-coloured balloons and flags blasted music from speakers while participants wearing pink boas or G-strings danced and waved to the onlookers.

Although the number of participants to the Tokyo Pride Parade has been increasing every year, many still choose to remain anonymous in Japan and others refrain from marching in the parade for fear of being recognized as being gay or lesbian, according to the Pride Parade committee.

Because people of the sexual minority community still experience difficulties coming out to their coworkers and families, the sixth annual event called for visibility of gays and lesbians in society and promoted their presence in the mainstream society.

'We need to create a society where gay and lesbian people can live as who they are without a fear of discrimination,' a panelist said at a symposium staged at a Tokyo park, where at least 5,000 participants of sexual minorities and their supporters gathered.

This year marks the first time that the event received support from the government, namely the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry and Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Aki Nonaka of Tokyo Pride Parade said.

This is partly because the governments have recognized the committee's efforts to promote HIV prevention, Nonaka said.

Japan is the only industrialized nation that sees the number of HIV infections continuously rising, with the number of newly-infected patients hitting a record high in 2006 to 914, according to the government's AIDS Surveillance Committee.