Fridae

For the many years that I advocated for a gay parade in Hong Kong, the most frequently asked question I faced was unsurprisingly, "Is Hong Kong ready?"

What that question meant was: Are there enough people who dare to come out and march?

Although I understood their concern - after all, I was working for an organisation whose founder had attempted to organise a gay parade 12 years before and ended up with a complete failure - my attitude at the time remained defiant. I said, "If you keep asking that question and doing nothing else, you will never know."

After the Friday of October 15, I now have a more definitive answer to that question: Hong Kong is ready.

There had always been talk that Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's famous hub of bars and restaurants, would be the perfect location for Hong Kong's first gay parade to take place because of its cultural diversity. Not only is Lan Kwai Fong frequented by locals and expatriates alike, it was also where a lot of sexual minorities used to hang out when the law still made it impossible for a gay scene to proliferate.

Three weeks before this year's Lan Kwai Fong Carnival, an annual event organised and supported by the area's businesses, House of Siren, a corporate entertainment company, and Club 97 (a gay-friendly Lan Kwai Fong institution) approached me with the idea to hold Hong Kong's first gay parade riding on the festive spirit of the carnival. It was a spontaneous venture and the thinking was: What are we waiting for? Why don't we just do it in whatever way we can and see how it goes?

In a way, the kind of spontaneity we had then paralleled that of our Stonewall predecessors. Although we were not being threatened by police bats and handcuffs, we were being oppressed in many other ways. Our demand for equal rights had been brushed off, as if our very existence relied on the approval of the mainstream. We wanted to tell the world that we were not waiting for their mercy.

So immediately we had a venue as the launching pad, performers to lead the parade and good timing, but would people come? That was still a lingering question and a major responsibility of mine as a volunteer of sexual minority group HORIZONS. As a driving force behind the parade, my organisation exhausted its network and communications channels to promote the event in a seemingly impossible time frame.

What happened at the end was beyond our expectation. Not only was the pre-parade party packed out, a few dozen people from the party joined the parade when it kicked off. More jumped in as the parade was on. Many people who were there for the Lan Kwai Fong Carnival took notice of us and looked on. And together with the Rio-style performers many proud and smiley faces marched on together, holding a rainbow flag that said: Hong Kong's first gay parade.

For safety reasons we decided to keep the route short, marching back and forth in front of the club. But the length of the route was not the point; the important point was many people joined the march despite the presence of reporters. In front of the camera lenses the crowd pronounced the undying motto: We are here and we are proud!

Some of my friends wanted more action, so after the short march they went ahead in their funky costumes to circle the block. Others went on partying, and some did not leave until 5am. People were having a good time.

The press coverage on the days that followed was mostly positive. There was a valid criticism that commercial flavours were a little strong since besides HORIZONS, all of the other organisers and endorsers were businesses. But the endorsements and involvement of the business sector in a gay pride event do not have to be a bad thing. In fact, according to reports in the recent issue of Far East Economic Review, which featured one of the revellers in Hong Kong's gay parade on its cover, pink dollar is the way for many lesbian and gay people in Asia to rise to power.

At the end of the day, it was the crowd that made the party, not the organisers. As long as a gay pride event has a clear message to convey, it is qualified as an undeniable success. What Hong Kong's first gay parade said was: The city has come a long way and many sexual minorities are ready to come out and be proud.

And for those who are still being forced into the closet by discrimination and prejudices, this march tells them that they are not alone and that it is possible to be a proud sexual minority, whether one is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender person, transvestite, intersexual or transsexual.

Hong Kong still has a long way to go when it comes to sexual rights, but it is certainly among the freest and most open societies in Asia. And as my colleague at South China Morning Post has written on the day following the parade, the event upkeeps Hong Kong's reputation as a vibrant, tolerant and international city.

This event will continue in whatever form or scale, but the message will remain the same: Hong Kong's sexual minorities have the right to be proud of who they are.

Reggie Ho is a journalist and Secretary of HORIZONS, a listed charity in Hong Kong providing services for people affected by sexual orientation issues.