weekend blog
As 2023 gets going, I thought it would be useful for my readers if I provided a list of some of the most important LGBTQ+++ internationally-recognised holidays and awareness periods with explanations off what is being celebrated. Now you can all put these into your diary so you too can celebrate our gender fluidity:
Name | Date | Year Started | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Agender Pride Day | 19 May | 2017 | A day celebrated internationally[2][3] to promote awareness of agender individuals.[4] |
Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week[5] | 14 February, The week following (Sunday-Saturday)[6] | 2014 | A week to promote information and awareness about aromantic spectrum identities (“a sexuality within the LGBTQIA+ community in which someone doesn’t experience romantic attraction.”[7]) and the issues they face.[8] This week was first recognized from 10 to 17 November 2014, under the name Aromantic Awareness Week. In 2015, it was moved to late February and the name was changed to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, to be more inclusive of all arospec identities.[9] |
International Asexuality Day | 6 April | 2021 | IAD is a coordinated worldwide campaign promoting the ace umbrella, including demisexual, grey-asexual and other ace identities.[10][11][12]The four themes of IAD are Advocacy, Celebration, Education and Solidarity.[13] |
Ace Week | Last full week in October | 2010 | Week to promote awareness of those on the asexual spectrum.[14] It was founded by Sara Beth Brooks in 2010.[15][16] |
Bisexual Awareness Week | 16-22 September | 2014 | Also referred to as BiWeek and Bisexual+ Awareness Week.[17] |
Celebrate Bisexuality Day | 23 September | 1999 | Also referred to as Bisexual Pride Day, CBD, Bisexual Pride, and Bi Visibility Day.[18] |
Genderfluid Visibility Week | 17-24 October | 2021 | Also referred to as Genderfluid Week, Fluid Week[19] or Genderfluid Awareness Week.[20] |
Drag Day | 16 July | 2009 | A day that aims to celebrate and recognize the drag art all around the world.[21] Created by Adam Stewart[22] in 2009 through his Facebook fan page[23] for drag queens.[24] |
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia | 17 May | 2005 | The main purpose of the 17 May mobilizations is to raise awareness of violence, discrimination, abuse, and repression of LGBT communities worldwide. |
International Day of Pink | The second Wednesday in April | 2007 | The International Day of Pink is a worldwide anti-bullying and anti-homophobia event[25] where participants are encouraged to wear or display a pink shirt, echoing a mass gesture of solidarity with a student subjected to homophobic bullying in Cambridge, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2007. |
Intersex Awareness Day | 26 October | 1996 | Celebrated in October to commemorate the first intersex protest, which took place in Boston, Massachusetts.[26] |
Intersex Day of Remembrance | 8 November[27] | 2005 | A day designed to raise awareness of the issues faced by intersex people. It marks the birthday of Herculine Barbin, a French intersex person. The event began as Intersex Solidarity Day, following an invitation issued by Joëlle-Circé Laramée, the then Canadian spokeswoman for Organization Intersex International.[28] |
Lesbian Day[29] | 8 October | 1980 (NZ) or 1990 (Aus)[30] | An annual day celebrating lesbian culture that originated in New Zealand and Australia,[31] but is now celebrated internationally.[32] |
Lesbian Visibility Day | 26 April | 2008 | Annual day to celebrate, recognize, and bring visibility to lesbians.[33][34][35] |
National Coming Out Day | 11 October | 1988[36] | A day to celebrate the act of “coming out“, i.e. when an LGBT person decides to publicly share their gender identities or sexual orientation.[37] National Coming out Day was founded in the United States by gay rights activists Robert Eichberg and Jean O’ Leary on 1988 in Washington, DC, United States. By 1990 it was being celebrated in all 50 states.[38] Although still named “National Coming Out Day”, it is currently observed around the world, in countries such as Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Australia also on 11 October, and in the United Kingdom on 12 October. |
Non-Binary Awareness Week | The week, starting Sunday[39]/Monday,[40] surrounding 14 July | 2020[41][42] | A week dedicated to those who do not fit within the traditional gender binary,[43] i.e. those who do not exclusively identify as a man or a woman, or who may identify as both a man and a woman, or may fall outside of these categories altogether.[44] Promoted on Twitter as @NBWeek.[45] |
Non-Binary People’s Day | 14 July | 2012 | An annual day to celebrate and bring visibility to people who are non-binary in the LGBT+ community. The date is the precise midpoint between International Men’s Day and International Women’s Day.[46] |
Pansexual & Panromantic Awareness Day | 24 May[47] | 2015 | An annual day to promote awareness of, and celebrate, pansexual and panromantic identities. |
Pronouns Day | The third Wednesday in October | 2018 | An annual event that seeks to make sharing, respecting and educating about personal pronouns commonplace.[48][49][50] |
Trans Awareness Month | November[51][52] | 2017 | A month to celebrate transgender and gender nonconforming communities and to raise awareness for this community through education and advocacy activities. |
Trans Awareness Week | 13-19 November[53] | 2017 | A week to educate about transgender and gender non-conforming people, and the issues associated with their transition and/or identity. |
Transgender Day of Remembrance | 20 November | 1999 | Day to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. |
Trans Day of Visibility | 31 March[54] | 2009[55] | A day to celebrate the trans community in a positive light, celebrating their lives and cultural achievements. This observance date was founded in 2009 by transgender activist Rachel Crandall (Michigan, United States),[56] the head of Transgender Michigan,[57] as a reaction to the lack of a day celebrating transgender people. |
Trans Parent Day | The first Sunday in November[58] | 2009[59] | A day that celebrates life and the love between transgender parents and their children, and between parents and their transgender children.[60] |
Zero Discrimination Day | 1 March[61] | 2014 | A United Nations (UN) recognized day[62] promoting equality before the law, and in practice, throughout all of the member countries of the UN. This day was first celebrated by the UN on 1 March 2014, launch as part of the previous year’s Zero Discrimination campaign run by UNAIDS on World AIDS Day (1 December 2013).[63] |
Seems all the bases are well covered there , thank goodness !
Oh Dear!
There are no spaces available to ‘celebrate’ National Normality and Sanity Day, then?
Shopping is going to be a nightmare. Waitrose will be celebrating all of them. Is the Coming Out Day a mistake? Isn’t that when the next lockdown ends.
Once the relatively few nutters and mental-defectives in the country were given a sniff of publicity, a lot more emerged from their hiding places. Who expected that?
Now they have seized control of the mainstream media, social and newsy, we’re stuck with this nonsense forever.
I therefore propose ‘National Ordinary Day (NOD) for the 98% or so who do not fit in any of those crazy categories.
There’s no hope for this country.