The first Christopher Street Liberation Day march in 1970 was a break from its precursor, the Annual Reminder picket, where women had to wear dresses and marchers could not kiss or hold hands. “We’d joke about being insurgents, but we were reformers,” said Maria Tamburro, who served several terms on the board before being expelled last year amid disputes with other members.ĭivisions within the Pride community are as old as the march itself. He left the organization last year, along with a handful of other board members. When newcomers tried to make changes, said Vincent Maniscalco, who became the director of governance and briefly a co-chair, “we met resistance at every turn.” As the arguments grew, the two co-chairs resigned. We were moving too far away from the grass roots.”Ī slate of new board members complained about a lack of financial transparency and support for members of color. “And we were hearing cries from the community that we were becoming too corporate. “People were afraid to speak up because there were smear campaigns,” said Evan Brewer, who served in several leadership roles.
My first Pride march was so exciting, but what are we actually doing?” So I could see the Heritage of Pride parade as this thing for white gay men, muscly, in glitter. “We didn’t have job protections,” she said.
At the Pride march in 2018, her second, she recalled seeing all the corporate floats and the stores with rainbow flags and thinking, This doesn’t feel real. Let’s talk more when you get home.”įrancesca Barjon, 25, who is Black and bisexual, did not see herself in these stories. After they hung up, his father called back and said: “Have fun today. “It was a whole other experience of love and light and excitement.” On a rooftop at the end of the day, after some drinks, he called home and told his father that he was gay. “It was like the whole world opened up to me,” he said. When a friend dragged him into Manhattan for Pride, an hour-plus subway ride, he expected brunch and a little parade. Michael Donahue was 25 and living with his parents in the Rockaway section of Queens in 2005, not fully open about his sexual orientation. Stories about Pride - and there must be millions of them - often go something like this.
How did a celebration that delights millions of people create so much rancor and mistrust? “We’re at a pivotal moment where we either come back, or people will look elsewhere.”įor Heritage of Pride, which just two years ago staged the biggest march in its history, with five million spectators attending, it was a stunning turn. “This is the worst that I’ve ever seen it,” said Maria Colón, a longtime Heritage of Pride member and former board member.