VietPride 2018. | Photo: VietPride/Facebook
Thousands of people hit the streets of Saigon to celebrate the beginning of Pride season in Vietnam.
The VietPride Parade was the first of many LGBTI events happening around the south-east Asian country.
National celebrities and delegates from other Asian Pride festivals attended the Parade and other festivities.
Vietnam celebrated its first Pride parade in 2012 and since then the celebrations have become bigger and bigger.
The country is one of the most open to the LGBTI community and is believed to be one of the few in the world that never criminalized homosexuality.
But Vietnam still does not recognize same-sex relationships and LGBTI couples donot have the same rights as heterosexual couples.
The Vietnamese government is working on a new law which would give official recognition to trans people, but that is unlikely to come before the National Assembly for consideration before 2019.
Events like VietPride are helping raise awareness of LGBTI issues and the community is slowly gaining more acceptance in Vietnam.
Here are the 10 best photos from VietPride*:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Happy Pride, Saigon! Greetings from your fluffy bears and chubs from B2B! #VietPride pic.twitter.com/Ie51i5vgMn
— Francisco Montserrat (@fmontserrat) August 25, 2018
9.
10.
*Photos have been republished with the permission of VietPride