San Francisco’s Pride Festival culminated in its annual parade on a cloudless Sunday morning, bringing big crowds and a sea of rainbows into the heart of the city for a celebration centered around joy and resistance.
The parade stretched down Market Street, from Embarcadero to Civic Center.
Organizers say the event brings in nearly a million people every year, making it one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world.
The theme of this year’s festival – which spans the whole weekend – is “Queer Joy is Resistance,” which resonated with many in attendance, who said it not only tapped into Pride’s roots in the Stonewall riots in 1969 but also the continued attacks on the LGBTQ community from President Trump and his followers.
“It is so important to be visible, to be out, to be loud, to push back [and] to not let what’s happening in Washington get you down,” said Lara Starr, a member of Free Mom Hugs, a nationwide organization that focuses on celebrating the LGBTQ community. “It is exhausting, but we got to keep turning out.”
Jessy Ruiz, one of the Community Grand Marshals selected by the SF Pride Board of Directors, said he wanted to come out to support the Latinx community.
“It is very important [for] everyone to support each other,” said Ruiz. “I tell everyone, ‘Don’t be scared in these hard times’ and [to] come and enjoy Pride.”
“Our administration is not recognizing us equally like the rest of the population,” said Jesse Crosslin, a 63-year-old San Francisco resident who has attended Pride with his friends for decades. “We celebrate through love and unity and just show a positive resistance through peace.”
Also in attendance on Sunday was San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who marched in the parade and spoke to attendees at the Civic Center afterward.
“We stand side to side with our LGBTQ+ community,” he said. “This is the city that knows how to take care of every single person.”
Pride festivities kicked off Saturday, where Michelle Gutierrez from Sunnyvale was at the Free Mom Hugs booth “sharing the love with not just sons and daughters, but grandsons, brothers, and sisters.”
“We feel that love overcomes hate, leading into this year’s theme regarding resistance,” Gutierrez said. “Love ultimately has more power, and it’s a form of peaceful protest, if you will, because we can fight back without using bullets and weapons. We can fight back with the love we have to give.”
Jeff Cotter, founder and president of Rainbow World Fund, had their bus parked outside Civic Center plaza Saturday. The organization is celebrating 25 years of educating and developing philanthropy within the LGBTQ community for humanitarian aid.
“It’s important that we don’t let people take our joy away,” Cotter said. “Having joy is one of the most important things we can do and showing up for Pride is one of the most important ways that we can practice our civil disobedience.”
elita layà with Stop Cop City Bay Area, which opposes the $47 million regional police training facility being built in San Pablo, said joy as resistance recognizes that pride is “rooted in disrupting hyper surveillance and disrupting police surveillance.”
“We’re seeing our neighbors be kidnapped. We’re seeing that folks are losing faith in the system, and so I see joy and restoring and reminding ourselves of the faith that we should have in one another,” they said.
On Friday, thousands of people participated in the annual Trans March according to organizers, taking over Dolores Park along Market Street to Turk and Taylor in the Tenderloin where an anti-police brutality riot led by transgender people took place in 1966 at Compton’s Cafeteria.
And Saturday saw the return of the city’s Dyke March, which hasn’t taken place in an official capacity since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
KQED’s Brian Krans, Billy Cruz, Spencer Whitney and Dana Cronin contributed to this story.
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