Roughly 300 people helped celebrate Vietnam's third annual Gay Pride parade.

Sunday's parade through the streets of Hanoi attracted mainly a young crowd, who cycled and danced through the capital waving rainbow flags to raise awareness of LGBT rights.

The parade – the nation's largest ever – was another sign of communist Vietnam's increasing tolerance toward sexual minorities.

“I'm here for the rights of homosexuals,” Le Kieu Oanh, a young art student, told the AFP. “I want them to be treated fairly like everyone else.”

A prohibition on celebrations for gay couples was recently repealed and in 2012 the government briefly considered legislation which would allow gay couples to marry.

“[P]ublic opinion is not ready for same-sex marriage,” an unnamed activist said.

The AFP reported that the police did not intervene in Sunday's parade. This is noteworthy because demonstrations of any kind are tightly controlled in Vietnam.