The Pride Photo Award aims to "further the acceptance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community" through images that show its diversity, in contrast to how it is typecast in the media.

Photographers are invited to send images into one of six categories, fitting this year's theme of "Straight back at you".

"We are looking for pictures that show the way the outside world reacts to people who are (visibly) different from the gender and sexual stereotypes," say the Amsterdam-based organisers. "These reactions can be both positive and negative: from Gay-Straight Alliances to anti-LGBT rights activists, from ‘fag hags' to transphobia.

"We have chosen this theme because tolerance for minorities is on the decline in many countries, resulting in support and repression or even violence on both the political level and in daily life. This affects both LGBT people and heterosexual people who do not dress or act according to gender stereotypes. This category is not for photos about people who do not conform to sexual or gender stereotypes, but for photos that show how the outside world reacts to them."

A jury (including VII Photos director Stephen Mayes, Michiko Kasahara, chief curator of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and New York-based photography critic Vince Aletti) will select the winners in July, all of whom will be flown to Amsterdam to attend an award ceremony. The images will be exhibited in the city in September, and the show will then travel abroad.