Under the beaming summer sun, one contingent after another sailed along NYC Pride’s parade route with thumping music, colorful Rainbow Flags, and defiant signs emphasizing the resilience of the LGBTQ community during a time of great political adversity.
The 55th annual NYC Pride March kicked off on June 29 with a morning press conference featuring the event’s five grand marshals, setting the scene for the day’s march. Before long, the temperatures hit the 90-degree mark — but that couldn’t deter throngs of people from packing the streets for Pride Sunday.
Contingents of all sizes and sounds barreled along the parade route: Dozens of people packed onto the Ali Forney Center’s energetic float, Gotham Cheer waved pom poms and stopped along the way to delight the audience with performances, and the grand marshals dazzled as they rolled by in their own respective convertibles. Some spectators brought lawn chairs and their dogs, while others high-fived marchers across the barricades.
One attendee, Val, who has attended NYC Pride for 25 years, watched the march and headed to PrideFest, the LGBTQ street fair complete with vendors offering queer health resources, free giveaways, food, and more.
“With a lot of rights being taken away right now, I thought it was important to come out and support and just be there — kind of my own informal protest,” Val said. “This year is more political.”
Another attendee, Carol, who has made it a tradition to attend NYC Pride, said she was remembering her late friends from the Continental Baths, which she said was a go-to spot for her in the mid-1970s when she was working on Broadway.
“Every night, after the show was over, I would go to the Continental Baths,” she said. “Sometime in mid-’80s, I’m watching Oprah and Bette Midler was on. I thought, ‘Oh, cool,’ but then she started naming people from the Continental Baths who were no longer with us. I’m going, ‘Oh my god, I knew him.’ Everybody she named, I partied with, I knew. And they were all gone.”
This year marked the 53rd year of NYC Pride for PFLAG, which was launched in the 1970s after a mother, Jeanne Manford, marched with her son, Morty Manford, in the Christopher Street Liberation Day March.
“Marching this year shows resilience,” Clark Hamel, PFLAG NYC’s executive director, told Gay City News as marchers were assembling. “I think anybody who has chosen to continue to show up, speak out, march, and be present shows a level of resilience, commitment, and strength this year.”
Just moments before the parade started, the grand marshals gathered in front of the press.
“This year’s theme — ‘Rise Up: Pride in Protest’ — is a powerful reminder: Pride didn’t start as a celebration; it started as an uprising,” said grand marshal Karine Jean-Pierre, a former White House press secretary who grew up in Queens and most recently served in the Biden administration.
Jean-Pierre’s remarks paid tribute to trailblazing trans women of color, citing the late Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, before emphasizing the need to stand up for trans individuals and queer youth who are under attack nationwide.
“‘Rise up’ is not just a theme; it’s a call to action,” Jean-Pierre said.
Another grand marshal, Stonewall Community Foundation executive director Elisa Crespo, who was celebrating her 20th anniversary of attending NYC Pride, underscored her local roots, pointing out that she grew up in the city as a “ballroom kid” with a working-class mother. Moreover, Crespo used her time at the podium to call on the community to stand together for trans rights and representation against an onslaught of transphobia nationwide.
“Many of us know our history and we know that trans people, trans people of color were not always welcomed to this march,” Crespo said. “We have to right that wrong, and I want to send a message while I have the mic: Politicians are misinforming the general public and the electorate. They’ll have you believe that trans people are responsible for their problems, that trans people are the reasons why you can’t afford healthcare or why you can’t afford to live in the City of New York or why you can’t pay off your student loan debt. Pay attention, folks. We have to stay focused. The faster we can do that, the faster we can unite against our common enemy.”
The morning press conference notably came less than 24 hours after a controversy emerged stemming from NYC Pride’s ban on weapons. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch falsely stated on social media platforms that members of GOAL, the Gay Officers Action League, had been banned, calling it “disgrace to the spirit of Pride.”
Grand marshal Marti Gould Cummings, a prominent and longtime drag artist based in New York City, passionately defended NYC Pride and called out the NYPD over the controversy.
“At a time when trans kids are under attack, at a time when the rights of our most vulnerable are being rolled back, the NYPD has used this moment to attack a queer organization,” Cummings said. “That is why we protest and that is why we riot, because we started this as a direct action against police brutality. The same department that has not owned or apologized for beating, arresting, and attacking people during the Trans and Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 — when countless members of our community were jailed, harassed, kettled, and beaten. They must take ownership for their action.”
Other grand marshals included DJ Lina and Trans formative Schools executive director Alaina Daniels.
The morning press conference and the subsequent march coincided with another annual march held on Pride Sunday, the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s Queer Liberation March, which bars corporate involvement and police officers as part of a grassroots effort to return to the roots of Pride.
The NYC Pride March was held this year in the midst of financial challenges for NYC Pride, which reported a $750,000 budget deficit this year after many sponsors “pulled back, scaled back funding, or reallocated it in a different way” due in part to fear of blowback from the Trump administration, a spokesperson for NYC Pride told Gay City News last month.
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