Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of downtown Boston today for the annual Pride parade to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Although a light rain fell as the crowd made its way from Copley Square to the Boston Common, it didn’t dampen the atmosphere of defiance and celebration.
The parade in Boston converged with the national “No Kings” movement across the country, with hundreds of protests planned to counter a large military parade in Washington, DC that coincides with President Donald Trump’s birthday. Thousands of people participated in protests in smaller Massachusetts cities, including more than 1,000 in Waltham and Lexington and hundreds in Newburyport.
Dozens of “No Kings” protesters marched in the Boston parade that had been organized for LGBTQ Pride, and many held signs along the route with the slogan of the re-labelled event: “No kings, but YAAAAS Queen!”
“No Kings” organizers, including Mass 50501 and the Indivisible Mass Coalition, had encouraged the Boston protesters to join in with the Pride parade, to show “joyous defiance of anti-LGBTQIA+ tyranny of a fascist administration.”
“We think it’s great — Pride has always been a protest,” said Gary Daffin, Boston Pride for the People president on GBH’s Boston Public Radio Friday, noting that Pride parades originated from a riot against a police raid at the Stonewall Bar in New York City in 1969.
Daffin said that while Pride has evolved over the years to focus on specific rights like domestic partnerships and same-sex marriage, the transgender community is a particular focus this year. Trump took swift actions soon after he took office to ban trangeder people from serving in the military and barring their participation in women’s sports, actions that have received pushback from New England politicians.
Many parade attendees incorporated protest into their celebration, including Ginelle Testa, who watched the parade on Boylston Street.
“Pride is political,” Testa said. “It’s not just a celebration, it’s about our rights and how they’re being taken away.”
While the parade was energetic and festive, many of the attendees said that they are also scared about the direction of the country.
“I’m sharing joy and frustration and rage,” Testa said. “We’re all scared and so I feel like … it’s really important that we’re both [Pride and ‘No Kings’] here.”
Karla Paschkis came to Boston to support her transgender daughter, who was too scared to attend.
“She was happy to have me out here on her behalf,” Paschkis said, although her mood was mixed. “This is a great turnout. It’s really positive. I’m delighted to see everybody out here, but I’m also very scared.”
Near the front of the parade, a group held up signs with photos of trangender people who have been killed over the past year in the U.S.
“It’s important that we make space for joy and community joy and all of the amazing beautiful rainbow that Pride represents, but we also have to remember our dead, remember the people who are no longer with us,” said Mason Dunn, a volunteer leader of the Trans Memorial March.
The protests come amid a tense moment for American law enforcement and military, after Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to quell multiple days of protests against ICE raids.
Massachusetts’ Sen. Ed Markey, who marched in the parade, said Pride is a “special day in Boston.”
“We can just feel the energy, the excitement, the joy, but also the resistance to Donald Trump, to everything that he is trying to do to our country,” he told GBH News. “Today, Donald Trump is trying to be a king. He’s trying to be a monarch with his military display.”
Patrick Edwards, who came to Boston from Fitchburg to participate in Pride for the first time, said he was “activated by recent events” to attend.
“I’m happy to see so many people out here advocating for similar things,” he continued. “And not really letting the administration, who has threatened to crack down on protest partially, to deter them and to really come out here and advocate for what they believe in.”
There were several contingents in the parade featuring LGBTQ+ seniors. David Reedy, who works for Age Strong Boston, said that he wanted to make sure that the needs of older adults in the community are highlighted.
“There are specific issues including fear of retaliation or discrimination in housing … health care, finding the right provider who can understand maybe the trans and non-binary older adults,” he said. “And a lot of LGBTQ seniors are single and might have additional income issues.”
This year’s parade theme was “here to stay,” which Daffin said is important, given the administration’s recent move to remove the name of gay icon Harvey Milk from a Navy ship.
“We’re saying, look, we are part of this country. We have always been here. We are always going to be here, we’re here to stay,” he said. “So you can try to erase our history, you can take our names off the ships … but we’re all going to be here.”
