Hong Kong Pride returns as an indoor market for another year as parade remains cancelled

The 2025 Hong Kong Pride Parade returned on Nov. 23 as an indoor Rainbow Market,  focusing on end-of-life arrangements for same-sex partners and raising social awareness of the rights and needs of the LGBTQ community. 

This year’s theme, “No Frame for Love,” encourages the public to erase prejudice against the LGBTQ community, and embrace love in all its forms. Nearly 40 booths were set up by LGBTQ-inclusive businesses and organisations, selling merchandise and hosting sharing talks.

Frankie So, 38, the director of Blessed Ministry Community Church, who has been with her same-sex partner for 21 years, said during previous street parades that traditional media and TV stations would report on the event continuously for only several days, while online platforms would keep the discussion going for over a month.

“The event has changed indoors and news coverage lasts only a few days, so fewer people outside the LGBTQ community are aware of these activities,” she said.

The previous Hong Kong Pride Parade took place in 2019. It was held as a rally after police rejected the organisers’ application due to public safety concerns.

The 2020 parade was also cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions and moved online. However, it was never held again, even after the pandemic ended.

Steven Ho, 35, a volunteer of Grey and Pride, the first and only registered charitable organisation in Hong Kong that serves and looks after the well-being of older members of the LGBTQ community.

“I used to hold banners to express my views during the parades,” he said. “There’s no longer a platform in the public discourse to speak to society about LGBTQ affairs, even the Rainbow market might be cancelled in the future,” said Ho.

In Oct. 2023, the Court of Final Appeal ruled that the government must enact legislation establishing an alternative framework to legally recognise same-sex partnerships and protect their right to privacy. However, the proposal was ultimately rejected by LegCo in October this year by a large majority.

So said that Hong Kong’s LGBTQ relationships are not taken seriously by the law.

“Our church’s proposal made it clear that the alternative framework represents the minimum viable protection of our rights, and it doesn’t even cover marriage,” she said.

So had the experience of being in hospital, but her partner was denied visitation and couldn’t bring clothes to her. 

“It made me feel like this relationship doesn’t exist under the law,” she said.  

Jensen Yiu, the co-founder of Alongside, Hong Kong’s first social enterprise providing inclusive and diverse life and death services, said Hong Kong’s current inheritance laws only recognise spouses and a few other relatives, unmarried partners whether same-sex or not receive no protection.

“They can only play a role as roommates or friends. When one dies, the other is easily evicted by the family,” said Yiu.

Yiu said without marriage or a will, the LGBTQ community lacks even the right to keep personal belongings of their partners, or attend their funeral. 

As same-sex marriage is still not legally recognised in Hong Kong, some couples are planning to marry abroad. 

Wang Lifei, 22, who once had a Taiwanese same-sex partner, said they can’t marry in Hong Kong, and may have marriage in a region where same-sex marriage is legally recognised.

So has now begun drafting a will naming her partner as beneficiary. She also said some Christian same-sex couples have emigrated due to Hong Kong’s failure to protect basic rights for them. 

“We simply want the same rights as heterosexual couples,” she said.