On 21 February 2019, Chiang Mai celebrated its first LGBT Pride festival since 2009, after the city’s last Pride Parade was cancelled due to harassment from counter-protestors. On 21 February 2009, what would have been Chiang Mai’s second Pride Parade was threatened and forced to shut down due to hostile opposition. The parade was blocked by around 200 protestors who surrounded the parade with trucks and loud speakers and threw objects and insults at the participants. The protestors were demanding that the organizers call off the parade since they saw gay parades as an insult to Chiang Mai’s culture.