InterPride

In April 1981, Pride Coordinators Rick Turner and Marsha H. Levine, from San Francisco and Boston respectively, met at the "call to unite" – a gay and lesbian leadership conference in Los Angeles, and the start of an organization then known as NOLAG (National Organization of Lesbians and Gays). While discussing common issues that their individual pride organizations faced, and remarking that their connections with the New York Pride and Los Angeles Pride committees were helpful for problem-solving, Rick and Marsha felt this trading of information was important and could develop into a potential network.

More than a year later in August 1982, Levine sent out a call for the First Annual Conference of the National Association of Lesbian/Gay Pride Coordinators (NAL/GPC), to meet in Boston. Rick Turner (now deceased) declined joining in establishing the organization, due to his deteriorating health. With the aid of San Diego Pride Committee and chairperson Doug Moore, who had been collecting a list of national pride organizations, and with small donations from the Los Angeles and Boston Pride Committees, the mailing list from Moore was used to distribute a self-mailing registration form designed and produced by Levine. Though many committees expressed an interest in attending, most didn't have the funds to send delegates at that time.[1]

On October 9, 1982, in Hill House on Beacon Hill, members from the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco Pride committees gathered in response to Levine's mailing. Three long tables were pushed together to make a triangular seating area. For two days many topics concerning coordinating LGBT prides was discussed, and while each city had different events, they discovered much of the planning and logistics was surprisingly similar. They voted to hold a second conference in San Diego the next year.[2]

The 15 people in attendance at that first gathering were:

Boston - Marsha H. Levine

New York - Tony Gambino [deceased], David Colle [deceased], Brian O'Dell, Janet Love, Fred Goldhaber [deceased], R. Paul Martin

San Francisco - Konstantine Berlandt [deceased], Glenne McElhinney

Chicago - Rich Pfeiffer (deceased)

San Diego - Doug Moore

Los Angeles - George Piazzi, Sharon Tobin, Cheryl Ruddy [deceased], Sean Johnson [deceased]

During the last 29 years, pride organizations from almost every continent have participated in InterPride's annual world conference.[3]

The conference is held each year in a different city, with the location of upcoming conferences being voted on two years prior to their occurrence. To demonstrate a commitment to support and empower the global LGBT Pride community, the conference is now frequently held outside North America, with scholarships available for member organizations that cannot afford to attend through the Pamela O'Brien Memorial Scholarship Fund. O'Brien was a longtime member of Cape Cod Pride in Massachusetts, USA and served InterPride as a Regional Director and Vice President of Operations.[4]

In addition, several of the regions into which InterPride is divided hold their own conferences independent of the worldwide conference.[2]

Annual world conference[5]

Year	Theme	Host city
1982	None	Boston, MA, USA
1983	None	San Diego, CA, USA
1984	Unity & More in '84	Wichita, KS, USA
1985	Alive with Pride in '85	Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
1986	Forward Together	San Francisco, CA, USA
1987	Proud, Strong, United	Baltimore, MD, USA
1988	Rightfully Proud	St. Louis, MO, USA
1989	Stonewall 20 – A Generation of Pride	Vancouver, BC, Canada
1990	Look to the Future	Minneapolis, MN, USA
1991	Together in Pride	Boston, MA, USA
1992	Pride = Power	Long Beach, CA, USA
1993	A Family of Pride	Houston, TX, USA
1994	Stonewall 25 – A Global Celebration of Lesbian & Gay Pride & Protest	Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
1995	Pride – From Silence to Celebration	Phoenix, AZ, USA
1996	Pride Without Borders	Kansas City, KS, USA
1997	Equality Through Visibility	New York City, NY, USA
1998	Unity Through Diversity	West Hollywood, CA, USA
1999	Prideful Past, Powerful Future	Glasgow, Scotland
2000	Take Pride, Take Joy, Take Action	Atlanta, GA, USA
2001	Embrace Diversity	Auckland, New Zealand
2002	Pride Worldwide	San Francisco, CA, USA
2003	Peace Through Pride	Montreal, QC, Canada
2004	Vive La Difference	Reykjavik, Iceland
2005	Equal Rights. No More. No Less.	Minneapolis, MN, USA
2006	Pride – Not Prejudice	Portland, ME, USA
2007	United For Equality	Zurich, Switzerland
2008	Live Love Be	Vancouver, BC, Canada
2009	Your Rights, Our Rights, Human Rights	St. Petersburg, FL, USA
2010	One Heart, One World, One Pride	Long Beach, CA, USA
2011	Pride Around the World	Brussels, Belgium
2012	Pride Links Us Together	Boston, MA, USA
2013	Pride 365	Montreal, QC, Canada
2014	Reflections of Pride – Stonewall 45	Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2015	Color Our World with Pride	Las Vegas, NV, USA
2016	Solidarity Through Pride	Montpellier, France
2017	Viva la Vida	Indianapolis, IN, USA
2018	Remember the Past, Create the Future	Saskatoon, SK, Canada
2019	Millions of Moments of Pride	Athens, Greece
2020	Exist. Persist. Resist.	Oslo, Norway
2021		Guadalajara, Mexico

Marchers at Pride Toronto 2014 with signs commemorating significant events in LGBT history in Canada. In 2014, Toronto hosted WorldPride.

WorldPride is a title awarded by InterPride to local prides that seek the title to promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues on an international level through parades, festivals and other cultural activities. WorldPrides are held at least two years apart.[6]

Date	Host city	Notes
July 2000	Rome, Italy	Coincided with the Great Jubilee
August 2006	Jerusalem, Israel	Took place after a year of delays. The scheduled parade was denied a permit owing to the 2006 Lebanon War.[7][8]
July 2012	London, United Kingdom
June 2014	Toronto, Canada
June 2017	Madrid, Spain
June 2019	New York City, United States	On October 19, 2015, NYC Pride announced that the city would host WorldPride to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots[9]
August 2021	Copenhagen, Denmark	For the first time WorldPride will be shared by two neighboring cities in the Øresund Region and coincide with the EuroGames in that same area.
TBD 2023	Sydney, Australia