Tokyo Japan Holds First Gay Pride Rainbow Week
Thousands of people joined a parade Sunday to kick off “Tokyo Rainbow
Week,” a series of events aimed at supporting sexual minorities.
Organizers said about 12,000 people took part in the inaugural parade, which
has been held for several years around the Harajuku district as a gay
pride event. The week of special events runs until May 6.
“This is our first attempt to link up with many groups” of sexual
minorities, said one of the organizers, Hiroko Masuhara, 35. “The parade
is a symbolic event in the Tokyo Rainbow Week program.”
Several corporations were at the event, including Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Phillips, and UBS.
Kenji, from IBM, joined the parade and told us: ‘IBM would like to
improve the environment and the workplace for people who are LGBT.’
Kentaro, co-head of the Goldman Sachs LGBT Network in Japan, was also
at the event.: ‘We are here not just for our employees, but for the gay
community to help their visibility.
‘We want to make a difference to people who don’t really know what LGBT is.’
