TOPLINE
New York City is cancelling the WorldPride parade and associated Pride events in June for the first time in history, organizers and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday, just days after San Francisco announced that its parade would also be cancelled, while organizers hope to throw a global “digital” pride party instead.
KEY FACTS
On Monday morning, de Blasio said that the June 28 WorldPride parade and Pride Month events are postponed along with all other city permit-required June parades, followed by a cancellation announcement by Heritage of Pride organizers for the first time in Pride’s 50 year history.
San Francisco Pride organizers also cancelled the city’s parade and celebration, which occurs through June, in an April 14 announcement: “Uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified in recent weeks, and the organization has concluded that the risks to public health of a large-scale gathering such as Pride preclude this year’s production of the annual event.”
Although hospitalizations and new COVID-19 cases are falling in both New York and San Francisco, Pride cancellations without an in-person postponement plan show a lack of a roadmap for handling mass gatherings in a COVID-19 climate.
Organizers in San Francisco said in lieu of the parade and celebration, they “will offer new and creative ways to commemorate LGBTQ+ Pride.”
The Chicago Pride Parade, the third largest Pride parade in the U.S., remains scheduled for June 30.
Heritage of Pride, the producers of WorldPride, have endorsed InterPride’s “Global Pride,” a 24-hour virtual event beginning on June 27, which brings together local, regional and national Pride organizers in a worldwide virtual celebration, according to NBC News.
CRITICAL QUOTE
«It’s not a happy announcement, but it’s one we have to make. And look, a lot of these events will be postponed,» said de Blasio on Monday without offering a concrete rain check plan for cancelled June events.
BIG NUMBER
5 million. That’s how many people attended 2019 WorldPride in New York City. New York’s WorldPride is the largest celebration of LGBTQ+ rights in the world.
KEY BACKGROUND
The WorldPride parade loops through New York City, closing down major streets and causing massive crowds—packed to see celebrities, colorful floats and revelers in the history-steeped celebration of LGBTQ+ rights and progress. The march culminates at the Stonewall Inn, the LGBTQ+ bar in Manhattan’s West Village known as the birthplace of the gay rights movement with the Stonewall riots in 1969.
