Pride parade
A pride parade is a vibrant celebration of LGBTQ culture that features floats, marchers, and various participants, aiming to enhance visibility for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning community. Originating from the first marches held in June 1970 in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles—marking the anniversary of the Stonewall riots—these events have evolved into significant annual celebrations recognized globally. Pride parades foster empowerment, acceptance, and unity within a community often marginalized in society. They are open to all who support LGBTQ rights, including organizations and allies. While pride parades typically embrace a festive atmosphere, they also serve as spaces for communal mourning and celebration, reflecting major societal milestones such as the legalization of gay marriage in the U.S. Critics of these parades sometimes argue that they can be counterproductive to the LGBTQ rights movement, pointing to elements that some find inappropriate for families. In response, alternative events have emerged to reaffirm the original intent of pride parades, emphasizing advocacy and support for vulnerable groups. Overall, pride parades represent a blend of celebration and activism, highlighting both the progress and ongoing challenges faced by the LGBTQ community.
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Subject Terms
Pride parade
A pride parade (or, alternately, a gay pride parade or LGBTQ parade) is a celebration of gay culture involving floats, marchers, and other celebrants that is intended to increase the visibility of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community. Pride parades are often the centerpiece of annual gay pride events in many cities. They are intended to encourage empowerment, tolerance, and visibility for a community is often marginalized by society.
Pride parades are typically open to all people and organizations who support LGBTQ rights. These may include high school gay-straight alliances, gay-friendly businesses, civil rights groups, health organizations, and gay recreation sports leagues. Anti-LGBTQ groups have often protested these events. In 2015, there were 116 pride parades attended by more than six million people in the United States. These parades were held in such disparate places as Fargo, North Dakota, and New York City. Since their inception in the United States in the 1970s, pride parades have been adopted internationally as a symbol of gay pride.
Brief History
The first gay pride parades were held in June 1970 in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. These parades were held to honor the anniversary of the Stonewall riots the year prior. The Stonewall riots began on June 28, 1969, in response to the marginalization of gay people in America. In this era, most gay people were forced to hide their sexual orientation, and those who could not or were unwilling to do so were often pushed to the fringes of society. By 1969, despite the advances made on behalf of other minority groups in the United States, there were still laws that prevented public displays of affection among same-sex couples.
As a result, police often raided gay bars. Anyone caught in these raids could be arrested and have their sexual orientation made public. Most members of the gay community regarded such raids as harassment. When the New York City police once again raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar, in June 1969, the patrons of the bar fought back. This struggle attracted a larger crowd that began to riot. The following night, more people joined the fight, and the rioting continued. Although the police were able to eventually suppress the riot, these events are regarded as the start of the modern gay rights movement in America.
Gay rights groups began to operate more openly in the wake of the Stonewall riots. As an outgrowth of these efforts, organizers in New York City established the Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day march. The goal was to empower LGBTQ individuals. At the time, even liberal newspapers such as New York's The Village Voice refused to print the word gay, which gay rights groups believed severely limited their ability to seek greater equality. Efforts like the 1970 march in New York were intended to create heightened visibility and show LGBTQ youth that they were part of a larger community.
These first public marches bore little resemblance to the highly festive contemporary pride parades. Prior to the Stonewall riots, gay rights groups such as the Mattachine Society had advocated solemn and sedate tactics to promote gay rights. Some of these groups believed that by adopting unthreatening means of promoting themselves, they stood a better chance of being accepted by mainstream society. Following the Stonewall riots, the underlying philosophy of gay rights groups was to openly challenge, rather than quietly resist, societal perceptions about sexuality. The New York marchers traveled from Greenwich Village, the home of the Stonewall Inn and the center of New York's gay community, to Central Park. The Chicago and Los Angeles marches echoed the somber tone used in New York.
In their original incarnations, these events were intended to be human rights demonstrations and commemorations of the riots of the previous year. However, over time, these marches evolved into parades. This adaptation was intended to demonstrate the growing expression of gay pride as a more open philosophy than that advocated by earlier gay rights groups. The celebratory atmosphere associated with modern pride parades was manifest in a 1974 event organized by gay rights groups in Los Angeles. The first gay rights event officially sanctioned by a city, the Los Angeles event adopted a lighter tone than previous marches. By the 1980s, many major American cities had their own independent pride parades. By the twenty-first century, pride parades had become significant events in many countries around the world.
Overview
Pride parades have strong associations with other political and social movements. These events were likewise created in response to the marginalization felt by many members of the LGBTQ community. By promoting visibility and solidarity, the first pride parades in particular were intended to demonstrate unity and highlight how LGBTQ people felt devalued and unaccepted by society. These parades sought to promote empowerment and encourage shifts in cultural attitudes rather than to respond to specific discriminatory laws. They have also become an opportunity for the gay community to gather and celebrate their distinct culture. Further, pride parades have served as a means of allowing the LGBTQ community to rejoice or mourn communally. For instance, pride parades became scenes of massive celebrations in the wake of the landmark 2015 US Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. Similarly, pride parades allowed the LGBTQ community to grieve together after forty-nine people were killed in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.
Opponents of pride parades have suggested that such events are actually counterproductive to gay rights. Many pride parades incorporate some outrageous elements, such as scantily clad marchers. As a result, pride parade critics have argued that they are inappropriate for families and only heighten the discomfort some individuals feel toward the gay community.
Other critics argue that the willing acceptance of pride organizers to link such events to corporate sponsors undermines the intentions of early gay rights activists. Such critics contend that by turning pride parades into staged parties, they de-emphasize their initial intent of assisting vulnerable groups in favor of publicity and a more festive atmosphere. In response, some gay rights groups have established alternative events as a means of restoring the original intent of pride parades.
Bibliography
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Johnston, Lynda T. "Mobilizing Pride/Shame: Lesbians, Tourism and Parades." Social and Cultural Geography, vol. 8, no. 1, 2007, pp. 29–45.
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Wythe, Bianca. "How the Pride Parade Became Tradition." PBS, 9 June 2011, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/blog/2011/06/09/pride-parade/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2016.