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The rainbow flags, the music and the party flooded the streets of New York during the LGTBIQ+ Pride parade, a historic event that had not been held in person since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This year it seems that there are more locals than tourists, perhaps there are a little less people than the last one in 2019,” a volunteer from the Episcopal Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue tells Efe while delivering water with lemon to the assistants.
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It was hard to top the previous parade, as it was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York.
It was about violent demonstrations that took place in protest against a police raid that took place in the early hours of June 28, 1969 in that reference place of the gay community in the Big Apple and that lit the fuse of the fight for the rights of the collective, since on June 28, 1970 the first Pride marches took place in New York and Los Angeles in commemoration of the first anniversary of the riots.
“I feel free, which is what we need,” he says while dancing to the rhythm of the music of the floats from the sidewalk of the great avenue.
This is the first year of this decade in which the parade has been held again without restrictions due to covid-19.
However, this year there is another outbreak that worries the community, that of monkeypox.
On Thursday, New York City health officials expanded access to a monkeypox vaccine, offering it to men who have had multiple or anonymous male sexual partners in the past 14 days, as it is a virus that affects, among others, homosexual men.
A total of 39 people in New York City have tested positive, according to the Department of Health.
According to the World Health Organization, monkeypox is spread from person to person through close contact with lesions, bodily fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials.
“We continue with the same measures that we had been using with covid, using hand sanitizer and masks,” Castro notes.
Some of the attendees, this year, have changed the multicolored flag for a protest banner against the Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority, which last Friday issued a ruling that revokes the protection of the right to abortion.
“Let’s abort the Supreme Court”, could be read on Esther Schonfeld’s poster.
Iván Castro, who traveled from Orlando (Florida) to attend this massive event for the first time, tells Efe that in all these years “the essence” of the parade has not been lost.
“I believe that the right to abortion is intrinsically linked to Pride because Pride has to do with our autonomy to direct our own lives and (the Supreme decision) took away our bodily autonomy and our ability to choose our own direction and our own decisions. of family planning. That is why I came with this poster”, explains the 21-year-old.
In addition, Schonfeld said she felt “concerned” that the most conservative judges manage to revoke other rights in the LGTBIQ + community.
Parallel to the action taken by the Supreme Court on Friday, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said that the Supreme Court “should reconsider all the precedents”, which would include the rulings that guarantee the protection of same-sex marriage and access to contraceptives for couples. married.
For their part, the organizers of the parade decided that Planned Parenthood, an NGO that offers reproductive health and abortion services, would be in charge of opening the parade.
“Pride was born out of protest and will always be a space to fight against injustice and discrimination. We advocate for bodily autonomy at this year’s New York Pride March,” organizers said in a statement.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
