Two major events in Greece marked PRIDE 2024. Up north, Thessaloniki hosted EuroPride. Look for that coverage here.
In the capital, Athens was back for its second after-the-lockdown festival in Syntagma Square. And DAGR was there, as we have been since 2016. As always, talk was lively and passersby ran the gamut of friends, members, American tourists and US citizens living in Greece who needed information on registering to vote in US elections. Our volunteers obliged!
DAGR Chair Brady Kiesling has the overview. And we’ve added a couple of pictures from Prides past.
"Pride went well. We talked to LOTS of people, US, Greek, and 3rd-country, with plenty of friendly curiosity, including from some people considerably more curiosity-inspiring than we were. There was a handful of potential new members and VFA users, and good vibes from American tourists passing through."
"Jan and I set up at 11:30 and our booth looked respectable with the DAGR and VFA stuff we had. I didn't find our Pride-logoed banner in the Edra (HQ). We need something rainbow-themed for next year's booth, maybe 1.5m, respectable. Something like, 'Democrats Abroad Greece: Proud of our values, Proud of our people.'
Charity soon joined us, then Margot Peter relieved Jan. I bailed for an hour at 2 to have lunch, then Margot and I held the fort until 5:30 when Anna arrived. We stayed with the booth, rather than march invisibly (i.e. without banner), and closed about 8:30. We were all tired afterwards."
Athens Pride – DAGR Retrospective
2016 Steve Medeiros, our Vice Chair, organized our first Pride Booth in Klathmonos Square. We had our first Pride brochures (put together by then-Issues Chair Kristin Zissis), other materials and the distinction of Steve and his longtime partner Toni Rampos having been the first couple united by Mayor Kaminis under the new Greek civil union law. Toni and Chair Karen Lee in the pre-Trump DAGR Red Hat and are shown here, holding down the fort and brochures.
2018 Having sat out the 2017 parade, in its first year in Syntagma, Steve organized our marching banner. Love Trumps Hate! It got a lot of queries from non-English speakers, and that gave us the opportunity to explain ‘trump’ as a verb and Trump as a disaster for the LGBTQ community and most everything else.
2019 By now, DAGR had learned the ins/outs of using local Greek suppliers for our swag. Two of the most loved buttons distributed at the booth came from the Dems Abroad Co-op designers in Germany, printed here locally: the generic favorite, Proud Democrat, and the wildly popular, Make America Gay Again.
2020-2022 Locked down.
2023 Pride Festival returned to Syntagma. DAGR was there. The photos seem to have been stored with the marching banner. The new US ambassador was there, and much more. Does anyone have a few photos? Send them along, please!
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