Barcelona bids to host WorldPride in 2030

A group of activists from Barcelona traveled to D.C. earlier this month to promote their city’s bid to host WorldPride in 2030.

Pride Barcelona Vice President Maria Giralt, WorldPride Barcelona 2030 Project Manager Andoni Ibáñez, and Pride Barcelona’s Roger Presseguer on June 4 presented the city’s bid at a José Andrés-catered event at the Spanish Cultural Center in Northwest Washington.

Catalonia LGBTI+ Public Policies General Director Alberto Lacasta, Barcelona City Commissioner Javier Rodríguez, and Barcelona Turisme Director Rosa Bada traveled to D.C. with the activists. Giralt, Ibáñez, and Presseguer visited the Washington Blade’s office on June 6.

“We intended to transmit the spirit of our candidacy,” said Giralt.

Giralt noted 39 LGBTQ groups in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia support the bid. The Catalonian government and Spain’s Tourism Institute, known as Turespaña, have also backed it.

“Spain and the ministry have helped us a lot,” said Giralt.

Madrid, the Spanish capital, hosted WorldPride in 2017. The activists’ trip to D.C. coincided with WorldPride 2025 that took place in the nation’s capital.

Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, who is transgender, is among those who participated in the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference. Turespaña also had a booth at the Capital Pride Festival.

Next year’s WorldPride will take place in Amsterdam, while Cape Town will host WorldPride 2028. Montreal, London, and Bangkok are the three other cities that have bid to host WorldPride 2030.

InterPride, the organization that coordinates WorldPride events, will announce the winning bid in 2026.

“What better occasion than to come to Washington to present (the bid) and to also connect with other countries around the world,” said Giralt. “This approval is very important, especially at this time when there is a wave, a drift, toward the extreme right, and we believe it is very important for all the world’s greats to be present, to be clear that the fight. The resistance must continue.”

Spain’s first LGBTQ rights march took place in Barcelona on June 26, 1977, less than two years after long-time dictator Gen. Francisco Franco died. Spain is now one of the world’s most LGBTQ-friendly countries.

“What we’re trying to do from Barcelona is to recover a little of this struggle’s origins,” Giralt told the Blade.

‘A historic moment to be in Washington’

WorldPride 2025 took place less than five months after the Trump-Vance administration took office.

Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, in February announced its members would not participate in WorldPride or any other event in the U.S. because of the White House’s policies. Equality Australia in April issued a travel advisory for transgender and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order that directed the federal government to recognize only “two genders, male and female” and banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, the co-founder of UK Black Pride known as Lady Phyll, spoke at the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference’s opening plenary virtually after the U.S. revoked her eligibility to enter the country without a visa because she had traveled to Cuba earlier this year.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection website notes the State Department on Jan. 12, 2021, designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. The CBP website notes that with “limited exceptions, a traveler who is found to have visited Cuba on or after this date is not eligible for travel under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) using an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and must apply for a visa to travel to the United States.”

Ibáñez told the Blade that he, Giralt, and Presseguer felt it was important for them to travel to the U.S. for WorldPride.

“We feel that it was a historic moment to be in Washington celebrating and fighting for our rights within the context of Trump,” said Ibáñez.

“It was very important for us to come here and share our values and claim next to your (White House) and say, hey, we’re here and we’re never going to go away,” added Ibáñez.