A photo featuring a young child surrounded by men in bondage gear won an award after being submitted to a Pride competition in Holland, the Post Millennial reported Wednesday.
The photograph features a little girl surrounded by men wearing revealing black harnesses on the upper half of their bodies and black leather shorts while she plays on her swing set. A woman, who is believed to be the child’s mother, reportedly invited the men into her home to change into their featured outfits, the Post Millennial reported.
The photograph, taken by Jan van Breda, received an award by Pride organizers for being “iconic” and the “most aesthetic,” the outlet reported. (RELATED: Gay Pride Month Ushers In Explosion Of LGBTQ Propaganda For Children)
The competition asked for pictures of the “most iconic, meaningful and aesthetic photos for 25 years of Pride Amsterdam,” the outlet reported. A select jury chose 50 out of the 13,000 submitted pictures that hung across Amsterdam’s Vondelpark in an exhibition called “Celebrating Diversity” to celebrate the nation’s 25th anniversary of Pride celebrations, according to the NL Times.
“This photo, in its composition-child in the foreground, men preparing for Canal Parade in the background, everyone busy with their own activities and fascinations-sublimely depicts what will hopefully remain self-evident: that we, unhampered by prejudices, and almost unsuspectingly, all may and can exist side by side,” the jury said, according to the Post Millennial.
This photo from a Pride event in Holland has won an award from the organizers for being “iconic.” It shows a child in the foreground while a group of men in fetish sex gear stand in the back. A woman claiming to be the girl’s mother said she opened her home for the men to change. https://t.co/oA14Gf5Y5I
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 11, 2021
The photos were displayed in the park from July 21 through Aug. 10, two days after Pride Amsterdam ended, the Post Millennial reported. Events included film screenings, street parties, stand-up comedy, improv and drag shows.
Lucien Spee de Castillo Ruz, director of Pride in Amsterdam, described the “Celebrating Diversity” exhibition as being a representation of all people, regardless of background in a July 24 interview.
“For me, this exhibition means a lot of freedom. The entire community is represented,” Spee de Castillo Ruz said. “Young, old, trans, colored, party, depth, struggle, it has everything. That is what Pride is. Pride is more than the faces people see on the outside.”
LGBTQ content has been incorporated into children’s education and entertainment in the past few years. At the end of May, the children’s show Blue’s Clues featured drag queens, same-sex couples and children that underwent sex reassignment surgery in preparation of Pride Month.
Children across the U.S. have also been exposed to “Drag Queen Story Hour,” an event which features a drag queen reading books to young kids in order to teach gender ideology. In May, A drag queen named “Little Miss Hot Mess” joined PBS where she sang songs, danced and read a book about drag queens to an audience consisting mostly of 3 to 8-year-olds.