Pride Month: LGBTQ+ celebration ends with NYC, San Francisco parades

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Pride Month: LGBTQ+ celebration ends with NYC, San Francisco parades

NEW YORK (AP) — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.

The wide-ranging festivities functioned as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by ***********-led states.

A trans artist, performs during a Gay Pride parade marking the culmination of LGBTQ+ Pride month, in Asuncion, Paraguay, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Revelers stand in front of the main stage during pride celebrations at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

San Francisco Drag Laureate D’Arcy Drollinger speaks on stage during the first of two days of Pride Celebration at Civic Center in San Francisco, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

“We’re at a time where there’s a ton of legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,” Zach Overton, 47, said at the New York parade. “It feels like we’re taking a step backwards in the ****** for equality and so it’s a great moment to come out and be with our community and see all the different colors of the spectrum of our community and remind ourselves what we’re all fighting for.”

Thousands of people gathered along New York’s Fifth Avenue to celebrate Pride. Floats cruised the street as Diane Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” played from loudspeakers. Pride flags filled the horizon, and signs in support of Puerto Rico, Ukraine and Gaza were visible in the crowd.

This year, tensions over the *******-****** war in Gaza are also seeped into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues.

Pro-************ activists disrupted pride parades earlier in June in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to center the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of *******.

“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Pérez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”

A vendor hawks rainbow-******** necklaces during the annual Gay Pride parade marking the culmination of LGBTQ+ Pride month, in Mexico City, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Orbach)

The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.

Nick Taricco, 47, who was at the New York parade with Overton, said he attended Friday’s opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, where President Joe Biden spoke. Taricco said he has concerns about politics in the U.S., including the presidential election.

“Even given how old he is, I still think that’s the direction we need to go in,” Taricco said of Biden. “But it’s a very uncertain time in general in this country.”

In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city also played host Sunday to the ****** Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.

Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations also took place Sunday in San Francisco.

Tens of thousands of revelers packed sidewalks along Chicago’s parade, a scaled-back event from previous years. City officials shortened the North Side route and the number of floats this year from 199 to about 150 over safety and logistical concerns, including to better deploy police into evening hours as post-parade parties have become more disruptive in recent years. Chicago’s parade, one of the largest in the U.S., routinely draws about 1 million people, according to the city. Sunday’s crowd estimates were not immediately available.

Additional parades were scheduled in Minneapolis and Seattle.

On top of concerns about protests, federal agencies have warned that foreign ********** organizations and their supporters could target the parades and adjacent venues. A heavy security presence was expected at all of the events.

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