Tens of thousands of people are taking to the streets today in Hollywood and West Hollywood in a human rights march that replaces the iconic L.A. Pride parade.
Inspired by the massive women’s marches that took place the day after President Trump’s inauguration, this year’s parade can best be described as a symbol of the Trump era — a protest march, complete with a hashtag in its name: the #ResistMarch.
- Here are the major street closures planned today
- Why the iconic L.A. Pride parade has been replaced this year
- Memorable moments through the years
- Scenes from today’s #ResistMarch
#ResistMarch and rally wraps up with Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles singing ‘This Land is Your Land’
This year, everyone’s on the move as march heads through WeHo
Joining #ResistMarch: 49 balloons in memory of the 49 people killed in last year’s Orlando nightclub shooting
Kassandra La Giusa-Riedeman and her mom Jacki Riedeman marched with one of 49 giant purple balloons commemorating the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando last June, when a heavily armed gunman stormed into a packed gay nightclub and began rapidly firing into the crowd, killing 49 people.
Holding the balloon, La Giusa-Riedeman said she could “feel the weight of the loss.”
Riedeman agreed: “It reminds us that we have so far to go, still, and that we can never give up.”
Riedeman and her wife have been bringing La Giusa-Riedeman to Pride parades since she was a baby. Now 21 years old and a student at CSU Channel Islands, she proudly displayed a button that said “I (Heart) My Moms.”
Mothers and daughters continued to march toward Santa Monica Boulevard, standing alongside those who chanted “Black Lives Matter” and “When women’s rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back! When immigrant rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back! When trans rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
Leading the #ResistMarch, a brigade of motorcyclists hopes people will “hear the engines in D.C.”
Marna Deitch isn’t walking in the resistance march today. She’s riding her motorcycle.
The 59-year-old motorcycle instructor organized a brigade of motorcyclists representing all gender and sexual identities to lead the march down Hollywood Boulevard. Dozens lined up on La Brea in the hours before the march, and Deitch hopes people will “hear the engines in D.C.”
With her motorcycle covered in colorful stickers with hashtags such as “#I resist misogyny” and “#I resist homophobia,” Deitch said this is not a year to “have fun” at the parade. Today, she is here to protest.
‘Love is Love’ and other slogans seen along Hollywood Boulevard in today’s #ResistMarch
Miguel Luevano, wearing a shirt that said “Love is Love” and holding up a large Trump piñata, said he was standing in solidarity with fellow members of the gay community. He’s been coming to Pride every year since about 2004 and said the march felt like a show of strength.
He added red devil horns to the piñatas’s head, which he found at a party store.
“I put horns on him because I see him as the devil. He’s against women one week, then he’s against Latinos, and against gays.”
Edward Gould and his boyfriend Bradley Land arrived Sunday morning from Pasadena in red shirts with white letters saying: “Make America Gay Again” -- a riff on Trump’s slogan -- and signs that said: “The fight is real.”
In the Trump era, Land said, there were so many things to be concerned about. He listed some of the many reasons why they joined Sunday’s march: LGBTQ rights, healthcare access, the fate of public schools.
“It’s an assault on everyone,” he said. “They just haven’t all felt it yet.”
At today’s #ResistMarch, crowd also stands up for immigration, healthcare and ‘human rights for all’
In addition to LGBTQ rights, marchers stood alongside each other this morning holding signs that spoke out on many issues, such as women’s rights, healthcare, climate change and immigration.
Numerous women wore the pink knitted “pussy hats” that became symbolic during the Women’s March following Trump’s inauguration. A young boy sat near Mickey Mouse’s star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame with a sign that said “Love Trumps Hate.”
Here are a few more signs from Sunday’s #ResistMarch:
‘It feels like a covering, the rainbow flag. It’s for everyone.’
Nina Firooz, 31, an LGBTQ therapist who lives in Granada Hills, and her roommate, Cher Heath, a 30-year-old attorney, stood on Hollywood Boulevard early Sunday wearing black T-shirts with the words “Jesus Resisted” in rainbow hues. They were at the #ResistMarch with their North Hollywood church, InVision Church. Coming to the march, they said, was in essence their Sunday service.
Firooz said she’s frustrated by the rhetoric of the Trump administration and worries about her rights, the rights of the LGBTQ community and those of others being rolled back. It’s been a long, emotional six months for her, she said. Her parents are from Iran, and she has worried for them too.
“I am a queer Iranian woman in the Trump era,” Firooz said. “It’s not a partisan issue for me. It’s how Trump treats people.”
She said Sunday’s march is for anyone who wants to stand up for human rights.
“It feels like a covering, the rainbow flag. It’s for everyone.”
President Trump’s Walk of Fame star is not going unnoticed
A can’t-miss at this year’s march: The massive transgender flag
Here are today’s major street closures
Although the parade has traditionally taken place entirely in West Hollywood, this year’s march will begin in Los Angeles, with participants gathering at 8 a.m. for an opening ceremony at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
Marchers will walk south on La Brea Avenue, west on Sunset Boulevard, south on Fairfax Avenue, west on Santa Monica Boulevard, and stop near West Hollywood Park.
In Los Angeles, Hollywood Boulevard will be closed between Highland and La Brea from 6 a.m. to noon, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
Other nearby streets in L.A. will experience rolling closures starting around 9 a.m. and will reopen as soon as marchers pass, said Bruce Gillman, an LADOT spokesman. They include La Brea, Sunset, Fairfax, Santa Monica and westbound Franklin Avenue between Highland and La Brea.
Why this year’s parade is taking a different tone
This year, organizers say L.A. Pride is getting back to its roots.
Over the years, the iconic L.A. Pride parade has evolved into a colorful, festive event celebrating the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.
But today, the parade will be replaced with a protest march.
The #ResistMarch comes a year after Christopher Street West, the nonprofit that organizes the annual event, tried, controversially, to rebrand L.A. Pride as a music festival in a bid to woo millennials. Protesters who organized under the moniker #NotOurPride derided the event as a commercialized “gay Coachella.”
This year, the LGBTQ community is lending our iconic rainbow flag to anyone who feels like their rights are under threat and to anyone who feels like America’s strength is its diversity.
— Brian Pendleton, march organizer