Google Is Celebrating Mardi Gras With Customs Pins For Pro-LGBTQI Places

Mardi Gras is fast-approaching (March 5) and we’re feeling the warm fuzzies and them #LoveIsLove ~vibez~.
So is Google, who get a pat on the back from Team Pez for an A+ initiative to coincide with this year’s Fair Day, when more than 80,000 members and supporters of the LGBTQI community take over Victoria Park in Camperdown for one giant picnic.

Last year, attendees created a collaborative <3 song to show that love is stronger than hate; this year, it’s all about celebrating and remembering people’s’ favourite pride stories, memories and moments by marking their locations on a custom map with a Pride Pin in the flag colours. 

The v. cute gist is to mark any place people felt or experienced pride – be it a first kiss, first love, came out of the closet or experienced a true sense of support – to spread the good stuff all ’round the world.
A member of the Google Maps Sydney team, Patrick Hofmann, wrote about the importance of the initiative and we’ve republished it below ‘cos it’s the best.
“Growing up as a rural Canadian farm boy, I hid my homosexuality for years, fearing that I was the ‘only gay in the village’ and that there was no support from my community. Although I was aware of a massive LGBTQI community in distant Toronto, I thought it was only confined to a tiny spot in the city centre that I rarely got a chance to visit.

When I finally came out in my thirties — in Sydney, no less — I realised these ‘gaybourhoods’ are quite spread out, and that members of the LGBTQI community dot every street and suburb of the city, and beyond. In those struggling years, I would have loved to have seen a map that showed this reach of community.

A map of “pride” would have given me more confidence, reassuring me that there were heaps of people truly like me, or truly in support of me – not just a distant global chorus from around the world, but potentially in my own rural community. Everyday people around the world fall in love, share a kiss, or come out of the closet, and the places where these significant moments occur become cherished for the memories that they hold.

That’s why at Fair Day this Mardi Gras we’re launching Places of Pride. Places of Pride is a custom map that gives the LGBTQI community and supporters, a place to celebrate and remember their pride stories, memories, and moments, by marking their significant locations on the map with a Pride Pin. A Place of Pride can be anywhere you’ve experienced or felt pride. Whether it’s where you came out to your friends or colleagues, met your partner, or supported provide and diversity in your community, we invite you to mark the places that represent your cherished memories of love, pride, or triumph on the Places of Pride.”
To get involved with Places Of Pride, hit up the Google booth at Victoria Park on Fair Day this Sunday, February 21 – they’ll have Googlers with a bunch of tablets on hand to help add your pins the map.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Photo: Supplied.

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