It's a little more than a week ago but I've finally enough upload credit at Vimeo to show this video that I shot at the Stockholm Pride Parade this year! ((To see the video I shot last year, go here.)) It was really great, filled with people who in a variety of ways celebrated a gender-liberated way of thinking. Freaks walked next to exhibitionists, anarchists who had their faces covered as they were being protected by police, lovers, haters, religious idiots, all types of sexualities represented, even Norse pagans were there, walking right behind goths who had their own float. Yeah, the floats in the Stockholm Pride Parade are mostly represented by two extremes: a) people walking together and b) people in a big truck, dancing away to a big sound-system.

I must confess I was quite amazed to see some wearing ginormous platform boots, dancing amidst moving vehicles; stupid or brave, I could not tell. There were a lot of political parties abound this year as well ((Weird and notable is Moderaterna ("The Moderate party"), a party I cannot stand; there's another branch of theirs called "Nya Moderaterna" - which means "New Moderaterna" - I laughed as "Moderaterna" walked first, followed by the traipsing "Nya Moderaterna". So much for evolution.)) as well as a few big companies, although I did note that major ones like Ericsson and Volvo weren't there. The Swedish police, army and doctors had some people there...as did the Swedish church; to me, that'd be like accepting nazis into the herd! How can people who explicitly state that they want non-heterosexuals dead be let into a parade where love should the main directive? Inexplicable. I just hope the organisers shape up on this point in 2010.

All in all, I couldn't help standing there smiling together with X and her mom as there was an enormous amount of positive energy in the air; while some say "if you've seen one parade you've seen 'em all", I say I'll gladly capture the atmosphere over and over again, not only because it's a grand thing to experience, but also because it's still needed; if my mere standing there means that support is added against discrimination, I'm happy for that too; ignorance and xenophobia needs to be eradicated.

Here's the video I shot from Mariatorget:

And here are a bunch of pics shot by other people, linked from here.