NYC, San Francisco and other US cities cap LGBTQ+ Pride month with a mix of party and protest

NEW YORK AP The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ Pride reached its rainbow-laden crescendo Sunday as huge crowds took part in jubilant daylong street parties from New York to San Francisco Pride celebrations typically weave politics and protest together with colorful pageantry but this year s iterations took a decidedly more defiant stance as Republicans led by President Donald Trump have sought to roll back LGBTQ friendly policies The theme of the festivities in Manhattan was appropriately Rise Up Pride in Protest San Francisco s Pride theme was Queer Enjoyment is Resistance while Seattle was only Louder Lance Brammer a -year-old educator from Ohio attending his first Pride parade in New York commented he felt validated as he marveled at the sheer size of the city s celebration the nation s oldest and largest With the state that we have politically it just seems like they re trying to do away with the whole LGBTQ area especially the trans society he announced wearing a vivid multicolored shirt And it just shows that they ve got a fight ahead of them if they think that they re going to do that with all of these people here and all of the encouragement In San Francisco Xander Briere announced the LGBTQ region is fighting for its very survival in the face of sustained attacks and changing masses sentiment particularly against transgender people We re slowly rolling back the clock and it s unfortunate and it s scary the scheme specialist at the San Francisco Area Wellness Center revealed It feels like the world hates us right now but this is a beautiful society celebration of resistance of history to show the world that we are here and we are not going anywhere Manhattan s parade wound its way down Fifth Avenue with more than participating groups greeted by huge crowds The rolling celebration passed the Stonewall Inn a Greenwich Village gay bar where a police raid triggered protests and fired up the LGBTQ rights movement The first pride march held in New York City in commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising The site is now a national monument Meanwhile marchers in San Francisco host to another of the world s largest Pride events headed down the California city s central Sector Street to concert stages set up at the Civic Center Plaza Denver Chicago Seattle Minneapolis and Toronto Canada were among the other major North American cities that hosted Pride parades Sunday Several global cities including Tokyo Paris and Sao Paulo held their events earlier this month while others come later in the year including London in July and Rio de Janeiro in November Since taking office in January Trump has taken specific aim at transgender people removing them from the military preventing federal insurance programs from paying for gender-affirming surgeries for young people and attempting to keep transgender athletes out of girls and women s sports We have to be visible We have to come together We have to fight Our existence is trying to be erased noted Jahnel Butler one of the population grand marshals at the San Francisco parade Peter McLaughlin stated he s lived in New York for years but has never attended the Pride parade The -year-old Brooklyn resident declared he felt compelled this year as a transgender man A lot of people just don t understand that letting people live doesn t take away from their own experience and right now it s just major to show that we re just people McLaughlin announced Gabrielle Meighan of New Jersey noted she felt it was key to come out to this year s celebrations because they come days after the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court s landmark June ruling in Obergefell v Hodges that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide Manhattan also hosted on Sunday the Queer Liberation March an activism-centered event launched in modern years amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate Marchers holding signs that included Gender affirming care saves lives and No Pride in apartheid headed north from the city s AIDS Memorial to Columbus Circle near Central Park Among the other headwinds faced by gay rights groups this year is the loss of corporate sponsorship American companies have pulled back assistance of Pride events reflecting a broader walking back of diversity and inclusion efforts amid shifting masses sentiment NYC Pride explained earlier this month that about of its corporate sponsors dropped or reduced patronage including PepsiCo and Nissan Organizers of San Francisco Pride noted they lost the encouragement of five major corporate donors including Comcast and Anheuser-Busch Associated Press video journalists Ted Shaffrey in New York and Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed to this story Source