While the City of Vancouver may have proclaimed 2018 as the Year of the Queer, Black Lives Matter Vancouver (BLMV) is calling it the Year of the QTIPoC (which stands for queer, trans, and intersex people of colour).

Although Vancouver police won't be marching in uniforms in this year's Vancouver Pride parade, Black Lives Matter Vancouver will hold its second march to raise awareness about ongoing issues.

The Vancouver Pride Society announced in November 2017 that they had decided that members of the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) are welcome to march in the 2018 Pride parade as individuals but police uniforms, weapons, and vehicles won't be allowed.

This decision differs from the 2017 decision, in which 20 percent of the VPD parade contingent were permitted to march in uniform.

Black Lives Matter Vancouver will hold its second March on Pride, as part of continuing efforts to address issues such as violence and policing, pinkwashing (corporate or marketing strategies designed to create LGBT–friendly images that may differ from a company's actual practices), homonationalism (the association of nationalist ideologies with LGBT people or rights, which can be used to justify xenophobia, Islamophobia, or other forms of discrimination), and decolonization.

On Saturday (July 21), starting at 11 a.m., attendees will gather at Yaletown's Emery Barnes Park with speakers and performers, before marching along Davie Street through the Davie Village and the West End, down to English Bay's Alexandra Park, where more performances will be held.  

The march celebrates queer, trans, and two-spirit people of colour, and will also honour and mourn trans women of colour who have been murdered in North America this past year, such as Tonya Harvey, Amia Tyrae Berryman, Celine Walker, and many more.

A security volunteer team will be present.

For further information, visit the BLMV March on Pride event webpage on Facebook.