Valletta Pride 2023: Hundreds Paint Capital Rainbow in Malta’s Largest LGBTIQ+ March Since Pandemic

Watch: Hundreds march for Pride in Valletta as rainbow flags paint the capital

Valletta’s limestone streets pulsed with colour on Saturday afternoon as more than 800 people marched from City Gate to St George’s Square for Malta’s first post-pandemic Pride parade since 2019. Drag queens in seven-inch heels clicked past 16th-century palazzos, families waved hand-painted “Love is Love” placards under the Grandmaster’s Palace balconies, and tourists leaning over café railings clapped in rhythm with drums that echoed off the bastion walls.

The turnout—almost double organisers’ expectations—sent a clear message: after three years of Zoom vigils and doorstep rainbow chalk art, Malta’s LGBTIQ+ community was ready to reclaim public space. “We’re not just back, we’re louder,” said 19-year-old University student Leila Sammut, who travelled from Żurrieq with her parents and two younger brothers. “My mum used to worry people would stare. Today she asked to carry the trans flag.”

Local context matters. The island of 516,000 people has topped ILGA-Europe’s rainbow index for seven consecutive years, thanks to civil unions (2014), gender-identity laws that allow self-determination (2015) and a ban on conversion practices (2016). Yet legal equality hasn’t erased everyday stigma. A 2022 survey by the National Statistics Office found 42 % of gay Maltese men still hide their identity at work, while 28 % of lesbian respondents avoid holding hands in public for fear of harassment.

Saturday’s march deliberately stitched those statistics into the capital’s baroque fabric. Starting beside Renzo Piano’s parliament building—symbol of modern Malta—paraders walked Republic Street past elderly shoppers clutching Arkadia bags and teenagers queueing for pastizzi. “We wanted to occupy the everyday,” explained Cyrus Engerer, MEP and co-organiser. “Pride isn’t a niche festival tucked away in Paceville. It’s a national celebration that belongs between the honey-coloured stones our grandmothers polished.”

Businesses joined in. Café Cordina handed out free rainbow ħobż biż-żejt for two hours, the Phoenicia’s doormen sported glitter moustaches, and a pop-up “equality market” outside the Law Courts sold earrings shaped as Maltese crosses in Pride colours. Even the usually taciturn Archdiocese weighed in, issuing a statement that “every person deserves dignity”—a nuanced shift from 2017 when Bishop Charles Scicluna initially opposed same-sex marriage before softening his tone.

For older activists, the scene was almost surreal. Alex Caruana, 58, remembers the first clandestine meetings of the Malta Gay Rights Movement held in a Gżira basement in 1988. “We were eight people and a kettle,” he laughed, wiping glitter from his beard. “Police used to walk past, tapping their batons. Today a police band led our march.” Indeed, uniformed officers high-fived toddlers waving tiny flags, while Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo tweeted a video declaring “Malta is open, Malta is proud.”

Yet challenges persist. Transgender Malta’s chair, Chantelle Cassar, reminded the crowd that three trans women have been violently attacked in the past 18 months. “Legal protection is empty if streets aren’t safe,” she told listeners crammed into St George’s Square. Meanwhile, asylum-seekers who flee Libyan prisons only to land in Malta’s detention centres spoke of double marginalisation. “I’m Black, gay and undocumented,” said 24-year-old Amara from Ghana, who carried a sign reading “Queer Refugees Exist”. “Pride gives me one day to breathe.”

As the sun set over the Grand Harbour, DJs shifted the party to Triton Fountain where 14-year-old Theo Pace from Sliema took the mic. “My dads adopted me when I was a baby,” he told the crowd. “Because of them I know love has no formula.” His voice cracked, but the roar that answered could be heard up Republic Street, bouncing off honey-stone walls that have witnessed knights, sieges and bombs—and, on this June evening, a small nation daring to celebrate every shade of love.

The march dispersed with plans already pencilled for EuroPride 2025, which Valletta will co-host with Copenhagen. If Saturday’s energy is any gauge, the capital’s balconies will need sturdier rainbows.