Madurai to Celebrate Rainbow Pride Festival

The temple city is all set to become the 10th Indian city to celebrate LGBT rainbow pride festival aimed in bringing visibility to alternate sexuality and gender identity issues. In India, the first Rainbow Pride March took place in Kolkata in 1999, and currently Pride is celebrated in nine cities and towns of India: Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Thrissur.

Srishti a LGBTQ group based at Madurai and Coimbatore is organizing “Alan Turing Rainbow Festival” in Madurai, in the month of June 2012. Several events including a film festival, seminars on LGBTQ issues, interactive sessions on gender identity issues and others have been planned as part of the rainbow festival. According to Sarava punniyan, the founder, Srishti aims to build a world based on equality, reciprocity, and interdependence, where people are free to express their sexuality as part of their broader human rights.

These events are supported by filmmaker Leena Manimekalai and Naz foundation’s Anjali Gopalan.

• 28th July, 2012 – Film festival

• 29th July, 2012 4PM to 6 PM – Madurai’s first rainbow pride march (starts at Raja Muthaiah Mandram and ends at  Gandhi museum)

Srishti is requesting volunteers to help with pride events on the ground and is also looking for donations to support this fully community funded event. Donations can be made in the name of

Balaji.V
(State bank of India)
Branch name: Lady doak College
Branch code: 10315
IFSC code: SBIN0010315

Orinam.net wishes Sirshti and Madurai a very happy and successful pride. We will update this page as and when we have more information available about the pride celebrations. You can bookmark this page or visit Srishti’s blog for more details.