After being postponed this summer, Berkshire County’s largest LGBTQ+ celebration has been canceled.
The 4th Annual Berkshire Pride was initially moved from June 21st to October 10th after the coronavirus pandemic broke out this spring. Now, it’s off entirely due to ongoing public health struggles with the disease. With no plans to hold a virtual version of the event, organizer Kelan O’Brien says that Berkshire Pride is putting its support behind the Black Lives Matter Movement.
“This year we’ve seen that communities on the margins are being subjected to violence – in some cases, state-sponsored violence – at alarmingly high rates," said O'Brien. "And those rates continue to increase for people of transgender experience, people who are queer, and the intersection of those two communities – Black queer people, Black trans people.”
The National Center for Transgender Equality said in August that 28 transgender people had been murdered nationwide this year, describing the violence as “particularly pronounced for Black and Latina trans women.”
