Dancers, revellers, and LGBT rights concerns at the Pride March
Dancers, revellers, and LGBT rights concerns at the Pride March
As a foreboding backdrop from threats both local and national hung over the day’s schedule of events, a continuous parade of marchers—some dancing and jubilant, some set with determined purpose—filled Fifth Avenue and the streets of Greenwich Village in Manhattan on Sunday for the New York City Pride March.
The march, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riot that ignited the current L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement, has colourful floats and flags. With 75,000 marchers and almost two million spectators, it is the biggest of its kind in the United States, according to the organisers.
As evidence that public support for L.G.B.T.Q. individuals has never been higher—between 60 and 70 percent in recent polls—the event is even now being carried on network television.
However, after same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in 2015, opposition to those developments has risen. In recent years, Pride Month has appeared to continue despite the L.G.B.T.Q. community facing new and escalating difficulties.
While protests and physical attacks against L.G.B.T.Q. events and their supporters have put a shadow over gay bars and community centres over the past year, states all around the country have passed laws outlawing drag shows and transgender health care.
Having travelled across the nation with her 18-year-old trans daughter from Southern California in search of a more accepting home, Juli Culling carried a placard that read, “I march for my daughter,” which was true in more ways than one.
When the family moved two years ago, Ms. Culling remembered, “I told her to pick a city, and she said New York.”
Although the experience has been incredibly fulfilling and her kid has adjusted well to her new school, Broome Street Academy, they still feel threatened whenever they travel.
“We are aware of the current state of the planet. She said, “It’s terrifying. She admitted that her daughter was really too excited to march on Sunday.
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The National LGBTQ task force’s head of religion work, the Rev. Nicole Garcia, recognised that the hostile environment of today affects her personally: “I’m a queer transgender Latina who is ordained,” she stated. She attempted to overcome her trepidation on Sunday, stating that “my arthritic knees” were her first concern.
David Rothenberg, 89, a veteran of the LGBTQ community who was standing next to her in some shade on the scorching morning, concentrated on the happiness of the occasion. It has the characteristics of an early release; it’s challenging, but thrilling, he added.
Anania Williams, a resident of Chicago who identifies as genderfluid and utilises the appropriate pronouns, recounted their path to becoming who they are on their well-known social media profiles, which sparked internet criticism. A break, a place to be “queer and happy,” they added, is provided by the march.
“Everyone’s allowed to change,” they declared.
Companies like Target and Anheuser Busch who earlier supported Pride celebrations have suffered billions of dollars in losses as a result of conservative-led boycotts. The backlash has extended to the 2024 presidential election as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis placed his Republican primary aspirations on opposing L.G.B.T.Q. rights and engaged in conflict with businesses that support them, including Disney.
The march’s organiser, Heritage of Pride, acknowledged the deteriorating political atmosphere in an open letter earlier this month that was signed by the heads of numerous other Pride events across the nation. The L.G.B.T.Q. community was described as being “under threat” in it, and they criticised “fair weather friends” in corporate America.
We are currently under siege despite the advancements we have made together, according to the organisers. “Our festive gatherings feel less secure due to an alarming increase in legal snarl-ups and targeted intimidation by extremist groups across the United States during these occasions. Threats are growing more real, terrible, and insurmountable.
They have come in a variety of forms.
A flurry of state laws targeting L.G.B.T.Q. youth in particular have been passed around the nation, prohibiting teachers from discussing gay and transgender issues in the classroom and outlawing minors receiving transgender health care.
Two human rights organisations documented more than 350 instances of anti-LGBTQ harassment, violence, or vandalism between June 2022 and April 2023 in a study that was published last week. More than half of these incidents specifically referred to gay or transgender persons as paedophiles.
These incidents have included some fatal ones. A guy was charged with planning a bomb and mass gun attack on Nashville Pride last week. An individual who opened fire at a gay bar in Colorado in November, killing five people and injuring 17, allegedly had such a plot, according to the prosecution.
