Police said a bystander was shot in the arm on Saturday after several men got into an argument unrelated to the celebration. The march wound its way to city hall, which was ringed by more than 20 stages and venues and nearly 300 exhibitors. Dykes on Bikes, a lesbian group, kicked off the parade, followed by dancers, cheerleaders, fire trucks, floats and music bands.
In San Francisco on Sunday, though, the mood remained celebratory. In Istanbul, meanwhile, for reasons not immediately clear, police used water cannons to clear a rally. “We were here to talk about the challenges we are still facing as a community,” May said.Ĭhicago police could not immediately confirm how many arrests had been made, but according to police scanners 15 to 20 officers were dispatched to the scene. “We went out today to remind people that Pride comes out of queer and trans people of colour like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson,” Page May, an organiser of a protest that was dubbed #BlackOutPride, told the Guardian. Two hours into the celebration, activisits chanting “Black lives matter!” staged a “die in”, briefly holding up the march.Īccording to protest organisers, approximately 60 people stopped the parade for 15 minutes on Halsted and Addison in the Boystown neighbourhood. In Chicago, during the largest Pride celebration in the city’s history, a protest related to another progressive cause briefly erupted on the parade route. While covering London’s Pride parade CNN earned widespread mockery for an “exclusive report” which mistook a flag displaying sex toy symbols for that of the Islamic State.Ĭhicago, Seattle, Paris, St Louis and Manila, among other cities, hosted rallies of varying size on Sunday.
“What do we want?” they chanted, a familiar refrain.ĭavid Studinski, march director for New York City Pride, tweeted that this was the most historic Pride march since the first.ĭublin hosted Ireland’s biggest ever gay rights parade on Saturday. In New York, revellers and well-wishers turned Fifth Avenue into a colourful, boisterous, open-air party. Overall attendance for Pride events around the world was expected in the millions. “Queers and allies alike need to vote and stay vigilant,” Gary Virginia, the head of SF Pride, said in a statement. Organisers said the festival’s theme, Equality Without Exception, was timely because the LGBT rights movement would now focus on fighting discrimination in housing and employment. I was expecting it to be a bit more crazy see a lot more nudity.” Nalasa Cutler, 30, attending her first San Francisco Pride, said the city felt united. “It feels that the allies are here more to celebrate and less for the spectacle,” he said. Goldhaber, wearing rainbow suspenders over a bare chest, agreed. “It feels less like we’re insisting on being normal and that we just are normal. “It feels more normalised – in a good way,” said Eugene Chisenko, 31, as he and his husband, Chuck Goldhaber, 27, watched a cacophony of revellers, including families with children, whoop their way down Market Street. The US supreme court’s landmark ruling on Friday that same-sex marriages were constitutional cast a mainstream, feel-good aura over a parade which at times in the past has felt edgy and defiant. Music bands led a parade of floats for the city’s 45th annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride festival, a party swelled by straight allies, cheerleaders, tourists and exhibitionists, all basking in the glow of sunshine and the US legalisation of same-sex marriage.Īround a million people were expected in San Francisco, a crucible of the gay rights movement, following equally ebullient Pride marches in London, New York, Dublin, Paris and other cities.