Pride in Bucharest

Romania only decriminalised homosexuality in 2001, as part of the reforms needed to join the European Union. GayFest had started in 2004, and in 2005 it included the country's first Pride march, under the slogan "You have the right to love". City Hall at first rejected the application, citing security concerns. The march went ahead, and it was the first gay march in the former communist country's history: passers-by booed, counter-protesters from the Noua Dreaptă movement shouted slogans such as "Don't besmirch the Holy Mother's garden", and tomatoes and bricks were thrown at those taking part.

Today the event is called Bucharest Pride, runs every year across May and June, and culminates in the March of Diversity, the Marșul Diversității. The distance from those few hundred to the tens of thousands of recent years measures a change within a single generation - but the march keeps its demanding character, and with reason: in 2023 the European Court of Human Rights found that Romania was in breach of the Convention for providing no legal recognition at all to same-sex couples. The city's queer scene runs year-round in venues around the centre and the old town. The list here shows LGBTQ+ friendly events as a whole and not only the days of the march.