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In Chicago, 23-year-old Sarah Hecker was attending her first pride parade, another event that attracted wall-to-wall crowds. "Not only to educate people in general on the diversity of LGBTQ community but also to see how strongly we feel about what's going on in office." She said the parade being televised for the first time gives people a wider audience. "I think this year is even more politically charged, even though it was always a venue where people used it to express their political perspectives," said Joannah Jones, 59, from New York with her wife Carol Phillips. Still others protested potential cuts to heath care benefits, declaring that "Healthcare is an LGBT issue." The Republican president also broke from Democratic predecessor Barack Obama's practice of issuing a proclamation in honor of Pride Month.Īt the jam-packed New York City parade, a few attendees wore "Make America Gay Again" hats, while one group walking silently in the parade wore "Black Lives Matter" shirts as they held up signs with a fist and with a rainbow background, a symbol for gay pride.
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"We want to let everybody know that we love each other, that we pay taxes and that we're Americans, too."Īctivists have been galled by the Trump administration's rollback of federal guidance advising school districts to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice. "Things are changing quickly and we have to take a stand and be noticed," Reyes' husband, Paul Brady, added. "We have to be as visible as possible," said Reyes, wearing a silver body suit and gray and purple headpiece decorated with rhinestones. The couple joined the "resistance contingent," which led the parade and included representatives from several activist organizations.
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In San Francisco, revelers wearing rainbow tutus and boas held signs that read "No Ban, No Wall, Welcome Sisters and Brothers" while they danced to electronic music at a rally outside City Hall.įrank Reyes said he and his husband decided to march for the first time in many years because they felt a need to stand up for their rights. SAN FRANCISCO - Tens of thousands of people waving rainbow flags lined streets for gay pride parades Sunday in coast-to-coast events that took both celebratory and political tones, the latter a reaction to what some see as new threats to gay rights in the Trump era.