Pink Season will have it all: Mr Gay Hong Kong, Asia’s largest LGBT film festival, art, theatre, parties and a gay day at Disneyland, but not, thanks to a break-down of co-operation within the community, a parade.

After some on-off years Hong Kong Pride Parade is scheduled back on for the 10 November, but parade organizers are not working with Pink Season any more. They recently announced that they did not want to be included in the listings for Pink Season, so what would have been a key event in the series is going it alone.

‘It is difficult to think of a more spectacular way for them [HK Pride Parade] to have to shot themselves in the foot,’ said Nigel Collett, English secretary for Pink Season organizers Tongzhi Community Joint Meeting (TCJM) in a piece for Fridae.

‘To deliberately sever ties with the rest of the community while seeking at three months’ notice to raise over HK$150,000 (US$19,000) was an act calculated to cut off more than a nose to spite a face. One hopes that the administrative skills of the organizers prove better than their skills at managing their relationships with the rest of the community. Hong Kong needs a Pride Parade and it needs it done well.’

Inter-community fallings-out aside, Pink Season is supposed to empower LGBT people in Hong Kong. Premiered last year, it is a series of events, starting from this Saturday (29 September) and running until the beginning of December. The organization behind it, TCJM aka Pink Alliance, are an umbrella group that brings together several NGOs working with the LGBT community in Hong Kong.

‘The theme this year is pink power,’ says Tay Her Lim, one of the organizers. ‘It empowers us as the LGBT community to stand up and stand tall. Also to tell overall society that the gay community is strong.’

The theme means that this year Pink Season are engaging more with the mass media and the straight community. ‘We are maturing and it’s about time that we get more straight allies to lobby our cause,’ says Lim.

Particularly straight-inclusive is Out in the Open, a family-friendly picnic on the beach on 14 October. Also a photography exhibition titled Love Shows features photographs of gay couples taken by straight photographer Samuel Lee.

Lee says a friend warned him he could be accused of voyeurism by choosing this subject matter for his exhibition. ‘But I was clear of my goal,’ he says. ‘The only thing I need to keep in my mind is the fine line of those sexy visual images. Our aim to get gay and lesbians closer to everyone, our images must reach the goal.’

Another way Pink Season is reaching out to the mainstream community is through a production that takes a real life court case from last year involving a trans woman in Hong Kong and presenting it as a Cantonese opera. Dream of a Mermaid tells the story of trans woman know only as W in the court case who battled to change her legal gender so that she can marry the man she loves (the case is ongoing).

‘We think that this Dream of the Mermaid is an interesting way to engage the straight community on the issue,’ says Lim.

‘Pink Season is about showing all the talent that we have in the gay community to send a message to the wider community.’

Find out more about Pink Season here.