Scotland's events in support of Pride go well beyond marches

On June 17, 1995, organisers expected only 500 people to turn up for the march along Princes Street, through the Old Town, up the Mound, where it finished in the Meadows with a festival.
Now, three decades on, the events in support of the LGBT+ community in Pride Month go well beyond marches.
Festival Fortnight is one of the annual pride events celebrated in Scotland. The two-week festival takes place all over the country and aims to encourage LGBT+ people to play sports, as well as try new things and be more active.
Founded in 2010, Festival Fortnight's organiser LEAP Sports Scotland (Leadership, Equality and Active Participation) works to achieve greater inclusion for the LGBT+ community within sports.
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'The original idea was just having some sort of concentrated time over Pride month to really bring the LGBTIQ+ sports community together, but also to give an opportunity to more mainstream sports to really open their doors and engage with the community,' explains Munro Stevenson, LEAP participation and engagement manager.
'When I say mainstream sport, I mean more sort of traditional sports clubs that are maybe a bit wider in scope, who maybe don't have as many LGBTIQ+ members, but the festival gives them a great opportunity to have pride-themed events or pride-themed open sessions to really welcome the LGBTIQ+ community into their spaces.'
Festival Fortnight is running for the 11th year, with last year's events seeing a total of 2000 attendees at more than 100 events all over Scotland. This year's lineup has more than 120 events scheduled.
The festival is open to all members of the LGBT+ community as well as its allies. It's designed so that age and experience or skill levels are not limiting factors to anyone, since inclusion is one of the main goals of the festival.
Stevenson says: 'A lot of people just don't think sport is for them. Whereas initiatives like this and specific sort of LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces can really show them they can be themselves in a positive environment, and what we find is that it's a real great way of getting people back into sport and physically active.'
Festival Fortnight offers a variety of activities, ranging from beginner classes, to sports-themed quizzes, mini leagues, sport swaps, film screenings and panels.
'I think it's really important to have these events in more rural communities, just, you know, particularly when the LGBTQ+ community aren't as visible as maybe they are in Glasgow and Edinburgh,' adds Stevenson.
'It's always great to see that kind of queer joy when people are, you know, climbing up hills up in the Highlands or engaging in their local communities, and I think these communities are really vibrant as well. So, it's just great to see them out there having a great time.'
Festival Fortnight aims to remove many of the barriers preventing queer people from participating in sports, as well as increasing their visibility with sports and bringing attention to wider equality and human rights issues in sport.
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Stevenson continues: 'You could find a really nice, lovely community group right on your doorstep that ends up being friends and people you can engage with and meet on a regular basis as well.
'I think it does a lot of awareness raising as well. So people can learn a lot about specific LGBTQ+ issues in sport.'
Dundee Deuces, an LGBT+ tennis and pickleball club, was launched last year during Festival Fortnight and has grown to almost 70 members.
Wesley Rennison, the club's welfare officer, says: 'It gives people a space where they can come and relax and enjoy. Be themselves and be social and not need to be on, constantly thinking, is it okay to be me in this space? They know as soon as they arrive, it's OK to be themselves in that space.'
Rennison adds: 'That means that some of the exhausting defences that we have almost every day in our lives, we can just relax and not be tired out by those.
'If just for that two-hour session playing tennis or playing pickleball, or if people don't want to play, they come along and they just sit and chat.'
Festival Fortnight doesn't just offer sporting activities, as Stevenson explains: 'We have film screenings and panels, for example. Pride football club ran a film screening.
'We also have the Glasgow Raptors, our inclusive rugby club – they're running a drag show next Friday night. So, you know, that's maybe a bit adjacent, but it's a rugby team putting on a drag show.'
'Obviously sports are very good for people's mental health as well as physical health,' Rennison adds. 'But actually, for me, it's about bringing people together in a space where they feel safe and secure.
'What we found is actually that the sport is almost incidental. Not completely incidental, but it's that they're being together, it's a sense of belonging.'
The first pride march in Scotland took place nine years before the Marriage and Civil Partnership Act was passed and carried the feeling of pride paired with politics.
Since then, Pride has grown throughout the country and is celebrated in many Scottish towns and cities, and in 2021, Scotland became the first country in the world to embed LGBT+ education into the curriculum.
Festival Fortnight started on June 14 and will run until June 30, with events running all over the country.
Three decades on, marches continue across Scotland, too.

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