On June 8, the week of the Lithuanian Pride festival will culminate in March for Equality and a concert.
This year’s festival is organised by LGL, the LGBT rights organisation organising Baltic Pride in Vilnius.
According to LGL, the festival is organised in response to a growing demand from the LGBT community to talk about its rights more often than once every three years when the Baltic Pride festival takes place.
“We are happy that from 2024, international human rights and cultural festivals of the LGBT community and its allies will be held in Lithuania every year. In 2024 and 2026, the Lithuanian Pride festival will be held in Vilnius, and in 2025, the traditional Baltic Pride festival will return to Vilnius,” the organisers write on the event page on Facebook.
They expect Saturday’s march to attract 20,000 participants.
“We are getting signals that organisations and companies are joining in en masse. I think we can exceed the records,” Eglė Kuktoraitė, a communications manager of LGL, told LRT.lt.
Foreign guests from other countries, as well as representatives of various organisations and public figures are expected to join the Lithuanian Pride march. Traditionally, embassies based in Lithuania will also be represented, and one of the main sponsors of this year’s festival is the German Embassy.
“I think it is symbolic to develop relations with Germany in the context of human rights, given our geopolitical situation and Germany’s support for us,” Kuktoraitė said.
Soldiers from the German Brigade assigned to Lithuania have also been invited to join the march.
“The human rights situation in Lithuania is of particular interest to our partners. It shows the difference between those countries that incite aggression and those that belong to the EU and NATO,” the LGL representative stressed.
LGBT marches are becoming an important platform for mobilising society, empowering the LGBT community and normalising its presence in the public sphere, according to Kuktoraitė.
“We hope that this week of the festival will make more positive changes than all this constant discussion in the Seimas, which leads to nowhere,” she said.
The Lithuanian parliament has so far failed to pass the same-sex partnership law. In May 2023, the Seimas gave its initial backing to the civil union bill by a margin of a few votes. However, the bill has not been submitted for adoption, as the initiators fear it would fail to get enough votes to pass.
On Saturday, the March for Equality will start at the Bernardine Garden at 16:00 and will go all the way to Vingis Park where a concert will take place.
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