Pride Month reaches grand culmination on streets from San Francisco to New York
NEW YORK — Thousands of effusive marchers whooped it up on city streets across the U.S. on Sunday as fellow revelers from San Francisco to Chicago to New York cheered Pride Month’s grand culmination.
New York’s boisterous throng strolled and danced down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village, waving rainbow flags to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising, where a police raid on a gay bar triggered days of protests and launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
While some people whooped it up in celebration, many were mindful of the growing conservative counter-movement, including new laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender children.
“I’m trying not to be very heavily political, but when it does target my community, I get very, very annoyed and very hurt,” said Ve Cinder, a 22-year-old transgender woman who traveled to Manhattan from Pennsylvania to take part in the country’s largest Pride event.
“I’m just, like, scared for my future and for my trans siblings. I’m frightened of how this country has looked at human rights, basic human rights,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
The parades in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were among events that roughly 400 Pride organizations across the U.S. are holding this year, with many focused specifically on the rights of transgender people.
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One of the grand marshals of New York’s parade is nonbinary activist AC Dumlao, chief of staff for Athlete Ally, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ+ athletes.
“Uplifting the trans community has always been at the core of our events and programming,” said Dan Dimant, a spokesperson for NYC Pride.
San Francisco Pride, another of the largest and best-known LGBTQ+ celebrations in the U.S., drew tens of thousands of spectators to the city Sunday.
The event, kicked off by the group Dykes on Bikes, featured dozens of colorful floats, some carrying strong messages against the wave of anti-transgender legislation in statehouses across the country.
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Organizers told the San Francisco Chronicle that this year’s theme emphasized activism. The parade included the nation’s first drag laureate, D’Arcy Drollinger.
“When we walk through the world more authentic and more fabulous, we inspire everyone,” Drollinger said at a breakfast before the parade.
Along Market Street, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) were spotted riding together.
In Chicago, a brief downpour at the beginning of the parade didn’t deter parade-goers, who took shelter under awnings, trees and umbrellas.
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“A little rain can’t stop us!” tweeted Brandon Johnson, the city’s newly elected mayor.
Chicago’s 52nd annual celebration Sunday featured drag performers Marilyn Doll Traid and Selena Peres, as well as the Bud Billiken dancers, who drew loud praise from the crowd as they represented the celebration of Black roots in Chicago’s South Side.
“It’s very important to have a Chicago Pride parade,” Traid said. “And those that wanna go against us, you have to realize that we all stand together.”
Thousands of people also flooded the streets Saturday night in Houston to celebrate Pride parades and embrace the LGBTQ+ community.
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“Houston is one big diverse family. Today is about celebrating people who are themselves, their authentic selves and letting everyone know that this is a city full of love, not division, not hate,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.
San Antonio also celebrated its Pride parade Saturday night, with hundreds of people lining downtown streets.
“This year’s theme is ‘Just Say Gay.’ We feel so strongly about the legislation that’s occurring, not only here in Texas but in other states throughout the United States that are trying to put us back in the closet,” Phillip Barcena, Pride San Antonio president, told KSAT.
Also on Saturday, First Lady Jill Biden made an appearance at the Pride parade in Nashville, where she told the crowd “loud and clear that you belong, that you are beautiful, that you are loved.”
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Many other cities held their marquee events earlier this month, including Boston, which hosted its first parade after a three-year hiatus that began with COVID-19 but extended through 2022 because the organization that used to run it dissolved under criticism of excluding ethnic minorities and transgender people.
A key message this year has been for LGBTQ+ communities to unite against dozens, if not hundreds, of legislative bills now under consideration in statehouses across the country.
Lawmakers in 20 states have moved to ban gender-affirming care for children, and at least seven more are considering doing the same, adding increased urgency for the transgender community, advocates say.
“We are under threat,” Pride event organizers in New York, San Francisco and San Diego said in a statement joined by about 50 other Pride organizations nationwide. “The diverse dangers we are facing as an LGBTQ community and Pride organizers, while differing in nature and intensity, share a common trait: They seek to undermine our love, our identity, our freedom, our safety, and our lives.”
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