City to celebrate queer culture

THE City of Ballarat has big plans for the region’s LGBTIQA+ community next month.

With June marking Pride Month, the municipality will have a calendar of events to mark the occasion, the program for which was revealed on Wednesday morning.

The initiative will mark the municipality’s first time acknowledging and celebrating Pride Month, which mayor Cr Des Hudson said is a step forward for inclusion.

“It’s huge,” he said. “The program is an absolute celebration of our diverse LGBTIQA+ community that need to be so visible and recognised.

“Around 9.6 per cent of the community identify as LGBTIQA+ which is not insignificant. To have a month-long celebration of events that connect community is a wonderful recognition.

“There’s already a great program that’s been put out but if it has to be reviewed and added to, that’s a great thing. The more events, the better.

“I look forward to this being an ongoing calendar month we can look forward to every year.”

The program boasts more than 40 events including a pride craftivism workshop, pride market, a yarnbombing project, an Ageing with Pride Q&A at

the Ballarat Library, and Queering the Collection, an online

exhibition through the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Pride Month was established in the US during the late 1960s, stemming from the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.

Tiny Pride CEO, Ange Elson, has been advocating for Ballarat’s queer community since moving to the region a decade ago and said the program is an important display of allyship from the municipality.

“The City’s really put their money where their mouth is in terms of their inclusion plan,” she said.

“Right from the top with the mayor down to the council

officers, everybody’s making a massive effort to celebrate us and start nailing that inclusion conversation.

“We’ve got a few events.

The ones I’m most excited about are our partnership with Are-Able with a pride lunch. We’re also covering seniors and having those conversations about their needs and wants. We’ve also got the Tiny Pride breakfast.”

The local program has been created alongside the municipality’s LGBTIQA+ advisory committee.

It will be publicly launched at 10am on Saturday 1 June in the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute’s Humffray Room.