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Hundreds of thousands at Pride parades across the US
People celebrate at the annual San Francisco Pride Parade. photo
© Noah Berger/AP/dpa
Discrimination against trans people is increasing in a number of conservatively governed US states. In New York and San Francisco, people are also taking to the streets against this.
Hundreds of thousands of people took part in Pride marches in New York and San Francisco on Sunday. The crowds thronged the streets of the American west and east coast metropolises, waved rainbow flags and wore colorful costumes to draw attention to the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and other minorities.
The parade in San Francisco was traditionally led by “dykes on bikes” (lesbians on motorcycles). Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Adam Schiff also took part in the procession through the city.
The Pride Parade dates back to the Stonewall riots of 1969. At the time, revelers resisted a police raid at the popular gay bar Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. On the first anniversary of the clashes, around 4,000 people marched through New York demanding equal rights – today the annual Christopher Street Day (CSD) commemorates this worldwide.
fight against discrimination
This year’s Pride celebrations also highlighted the LGBTQ community’s concerns about reduced rights and the rise in violence and hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people. LGBTQ is the English abbreviation for these groups.
Legislative initiatives designed to prevent trans people from playing in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity are seen as examples of such discrimination in conservatively governed US states. Some states want to criminalize gender reassignment treatments in adolescents. A much-criticized school law in the US state of Florida bans the topics of “sexual orientation or gender identity” from kindergarten through third grade and also restricts it for older students.