Mad? There's Pride for that!

Mad Pride is an arts, culture, and heritage festival created by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, and folks the world has labelled “mentally ill”.

Mad Pride is about:

remembering and participating in mad history
challenging discrimination
advocating for rights
affirming mad identities
developing and empowering mad communities
having fun!

Our lives and contributions are valuable and need celebration!

All events are FREE.

Mad? What's in a word?

Similar to how LGBTQ communities are reclaiming the word “queer”, Mad Pride activists seek to reclaim language that has been used against us such as "mad", "nutter", "crazy", "lunatic", "maniac", and "psycho".

Reclaiming language is political and challenges discrimination. Mad Pride participants use and refuse a variety of labels. We choose “mad” as an umbrella term.

For more information:

Reid, J. (2009). Student placement – learning at the Empowerment Council. Empowerment Report: The Newsletter of the Empowerment Council, 1(2), pp. 4.

Pride? Really?

There have been multiple approaches to challenging discrimination against people with disabilities/disabled people including Pride. These started gaining ground in North America during the 1970s thanks to groups in the disability rights movement and other social movements.

The Mad Pride approach:

celebrates mad identities, communities, and cultures including our individual and collective strengths
confronts the shame we are made to feel about our psychiatric histories and experiences of madness
resists the oppression we encounter within aspects of psychiatric/mental health systems and society
reminds us and others that as mad people we have rights to be ourselves - just like everyone else

What are you proud of?

Mad culture - say what?

We talk about Mad Pride as a cultural festival. Do you wonder what we mean?

Most people think of us only in terms of medical diagnoses or illnesses. There is a lot of mainstream emphasis on “mental health awareness”.

When we talk about culture, we are talking about mad people as a people. Madness is a political and social identity that we take pride in. As mad people, we have unique ways of experiencing the world, making meaning, developing community, and creating culture.

We take pride in our culture. This culture is showcased and celebrated during Mad Pride.

For more information:

Costa, L. (2008). Mad Pride in our Mad Culture: Mad Culture…say what? Consumer/Survivor Information Bulletin, 374, pp. 4.