Pride Toronto has unveiled its 2018 Pride Month theme, 35 Years of AIDS Activism, to express the spirit of North America’s largest Pride Celebration, and our fight for our lives. The 2018 creative reflects the change our community is undergoing, and how deeply impacted the community has been by loss, both in the past and now.

The theme focuses on people who struggled, and the organizations that exist to support them. This year the focus is on the continued struggle against the criminalization and stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS, and to honour those who took action to change their medical, social, and political circumstances. Pride Toronto also commemorate the organizations that grew out of that struggle, and thank them for their hard and enduring work against this disease, and the social and economic stigma surrounding it. Honouring the stories of resistance and of loss and pain; then and now.

This theme expresses freedom.  The lines are as jagged as the community, and the colours just as bright.  Paying homage to the future of the LGBTQ2S+ community as a many faceted, brightly, and proudly coloured, international community. Our imagery is steeped in the history of queerness, but firmly fixed to the future which is diverse, sexuality and gender defying, brave, and proud.

“Pride Toronto honours those that continue to fight for the rights and freedoms of all of the LGBTQ+ community.  We do this by reflecting on the achievements of the past, honouring those that we have lost, and celebrating the future of our growing and diverse community,” stated Olivia Nuamah, Pride Toronto Executive Director.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist with a focus on travel, lifestyle, entertainment and hospitality. He has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He enjoys discovering delicious eats, tasting spirited treats, and being mesmerized by musical beats.