Pride Talk 2023

Press release
Monday 3 July, Amsterdam

Veteran LGBTQIA+ activist David Mixner to give Pride Talk at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam

De Nieuwe Kerk is hosting a talk by David Mixner on Thursday 20 July, the eve of Queer & Pride Amsterdam 2023. Amsterdam’s LGBTQIA+ community holds Queer & Pride Amsterdam each year to celebrate its achievements and consider the future of its struggle for equal rights. It’s the perfect time to invite a renowned international activist to offer an outsider view of the Netherlands and Amsterdam. Veteran Mixner is kicking off the series. He will be introduced by Astrid Oosenbrug, chair of COC Nederland, and Dutch senator and human rights activist Boris Dittrich.

Gay Capital

Amsterdam once flaunted its reputation as the Gay Capital of the world. Does such a title still exist and, if so, what does it entail? Do we still aspire this position today? Does it really chime with the diversity of the rainbow LGBTQIA+ community? How do people in other countries view our community here? And how do we in Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands relate to the international community and the global struggle?

Questions we will travel the world to answer over the next few years, in partnership with various relevant communities. We start in the United States, a country to which the Netherlands often looks for inspiration. A lot of Pride history has been written there, think Stonewall, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP. It is also the country of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that forced gay people serving in the American military to conceal their sexual orientation. President Clinton introduced this policy. It was his former campaign leader, David Mixner, who led the rebellion against it. The White House was eventually forced to change its policy and President Obama repealed the law in 2010. Today, Don’t Say Gay laws are being passed in the US, putting the rights of non-binary and transgender people in particular jeopardy.

About David Mixner

David Mixner (b. 1946), fundraiser, activist, writer, and performer is a veteran of many battlegrounds. In the early sixties he campaigned for John and Bobby Kennedy and for Martin Luther King. He became a prominent leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement and is now, since his coming out in 1977, a figurehead for the LGBTQIA+ rights movement in the United States.

The Pride Talk is free to attend and will be conducted in English. De Nieuwe Kerk is collaborating with Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam as hospitality partner for this Pride Talk.

Pride Talk 2023, Thursday 20 July in De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam.
Doors open at 19.30, talk starts at 20.00. Language: English.

Note to editors, not for publication

The name of the speaker to give the Pride Lecture 2024 will be announced in early 2024.
The focus will be on a different continent, country and generation.

Contact De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam
Press & Marketing Communications Department
Madeline van Vliet, Stella Küçüksen and Fleur Vroegindewey
+31 (0)20 626 81 68 | pressoffice@nieuwekerk.nl
www.nieuwekerk.nl/en/press/