Love Pride but hate big parades? These places are doing it differently

BBC / JOSH PARRY

This year marks Cleckheaton’s third annual Pride. Dione Frost, organiser of the event in the small market town in West Yorkshire, says it’s the biggest yet.

But size is relative, and compared with the likes of London, Manchester or Brighton, Cleckheaton Pride is a minnow.

The Pride movement, which celebrates LGBTQ+ culture, history and civil rights, is going through a turbulent period, with many events cancelled or scaled back. But some more community-focused gatherings say they are experiencing a surge in demand.

From bug-hunting in Glasgow to a picnic in Salford, I travelled to three events around the country to experience a different side to the Pride movement.

BBC / JOSH PARRY

At first glance Cleckheaton’s Pride looks like any ordinary Saturday on the High Street.

But inside The Loft bar, a rainbow balloon arch welcomes guests to an explosion of colour. Dione Frost was up until 03:00 preparing the event and now drag queens entertain the crowd as Christina Aguilera’s Lady Marmalade blasts from the speakers.

Drag performer Coby Mayman, one of the acts, says he was almost late for the event when a taxi driver refused to pick him up after noticing he was wearing make-up.

“I was dressed in joggers and a jacket, but I had my wig and make-up on. He asked if the cab was for my boy name, and when I said yes, he said, ‘Sorry I can’t have you in,’ and just drove off.”

While it’s the first time it’s happened to Mayman, whose stage name is Kylie Kush, other drag performers here say it’s a common occurrence.

“If that had happened any other day it would have really knocked me, but I knew I was coming to such a safe space where I can just be myself,” Mayman says.

“It reminds me why visibility is important, especially in smaller towns like this, it gives people a chance to see there are other people out there just like them, and that’s special.”

This Pride month, some Reform-led councils have said they will withdraw support for Pride events and stop flying Pride flags from civic buildings, saying it allows them to “focus on representing everyone in the community equally” and “concentrate on core responsibilities.”

Cleckheaton’s local authority, Kirklees Council, has a Reform majority but has not yet elected a leader. While it still supports some Pride events, the wider debate has left some attendees nervous about the future of Pride in the borough.

“If the council can save money by not giving it to Pride, that doesn’t bother me so much,” says Jodie Hudson, 46, who is visiting from nearby Osset. “But [not flying] Pride flags, to me that’s not right.

“If spaces like [The Loft] can put them on independently, that’s great and it gives people like me a place to be myself.”

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Later that week, at the gates of Glasgow’s Queen’s Park, around 25 people wearing boots and cagoules are gathering for a “queer ecology tour”.

Insect scientist Connor Butler’s tours combine nature walks with opportunities for LGBTQ+ people to meet away from busy bars and noisy Pride parades.

He says the idea came to him in 2023, after he unexpectedly found himself caught up at London Pride while on his way to work, wearing “gross bird-feeding clothes, covered in bird poo”.

“I don’t like crowds, I don’t like clubs or drinking, so I just felt so alienated by it. Everyone else was looking beautiful and it was just not a great first Pride experience.”

He still thinks the parades are an amazing celebration – but they’re just not for him.

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Three years later, Butler is running his tours across the UK for the first time, guiding small groups through urban parks and green spaces to find interesting insects and discuss the other plants and animals they find there.

Attendees are shown how to use an insect net to brush through the long grass, and a hand lens to identify what they find.

A centipede captures their attention – and they’re surprised by the number of different types of insects lurking in an urban park. But what really gets them talking are Butler’s parallels between nature and LGBTQ+ life.

He describes how scientists in the 1970s found around 15% of Western gulls formed same-sex pairings – a discovery that sparked a moral panic and even threats to defund their research.

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Beatrice Thirkettle, 32, says the tour is “about making it clear to LGBTQ+ people that the outdoors are for you, and it’s a nice chance to get to know other people from the community away from lots of music or alcohol”.

Zoology graduate Hannah Eaton, 26, uses a wheelchair and says she has found many traditional Pride events difficult to attend.

“There’s a lot of disabled people who are excluded when accessibility isn’t taken into account, and it can be really isolating,” she says.

The ecology tour being held in a public park with even footpaths meant she could fully participate.

As the walk ends, the group poses for a photo – holding a rainbow flag that reads “be queer, touch bugs” – and some participants exchange contact details.

“It’s really heartwarming,” Butler says.

“If I’d have known this community was out there years ago, I’d have probably been kinder to myself and more accepting that I don’t have to conform to any stereotypes.”

More than 200 miles (320km) away in Salford’s Peel Park, there are more cool boxes and picnic blankets than there are bug nets and walking boots.

Around 6,000 people gather here every year for the city’s Pink Picnic event, a one-day Pride festival featuring food trucks, a festival stage and stalls for local charities and businesses.

There are groups of friends, families and even dogs – it’s like a big summer fête, with rainbows and glitter.

This year marks its 15th anniversary, but organisers say financial pressures meant they weren’t certain the event would reach this milestone.

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Event lead Reece Holmes says organisers were still worried about budgets until a week before, “and it’s been like that for the last two years”.

Ticket charges were introduced last year for the first time, and sponsorships are drying up, adds Holmes.

“At the same time, politically speaking, companies are pulling back their support for anything related to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).”

Holmes says the size of the event means it relies heavily on people buying tickets and attending.

“It costs more than £100,000 to put on,” he says, with big costs for security, infrastructure and policing. “If people don’t support these events, they won’t happen, they’re fragile.”

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Joe, 28, tells me the event is an important moment in the Pride calendar: “I like that it’s a smaller space, it’s more community-focused.”

Caitlyn, 25, arriving with a group of friends says: “We need the smaller communities to have the space to be out here… without having to go to bigger cities.”

For Holmes, who runs the Pink Picnic voluntarily, this kind of response makes it all worth it.

“There’s someone who comes to our event every year from the estate around the corner, and every year they get more and more confident and they tell us how much it means to them,” he says.