New York Pride was different this year, but no less important

Usually at this time in New York, Pride celebrations would be in full swing: official parades, corporate sponsors and rainbow cake specials would abound. This year, as with everything, the arrangements have been a little different. New York only just began reopening, and I started my weekend with the first boozy brunch I’ve had in four months. My friend got on the subway – the subway! – to meet me for the occasion, dressed in long plastic gloves and two masks layered on top of one another (a rainbow Pride mask on the top, and a normal surgical one underneath). We met early on Sunday in the blazing sunshine and wandered the streets of Brooklyn looking for establishments which had built the obligatory outdoor areas that would allow them to open up under Phase Two arrangements.

Eventually, we settled on one of our usual, pre-quarantine places, which had constructed a sort of marquee in the road with plastic chairs and tables. Squashed between the drain and the busy street, we couldn’t have been happier. There were huevos rancheros and strawberry margaritas! There were truffle fries and plates we didn’t have to wash up ourselves! We were allowed to see each other’s unmasked faces for the brief period we were sat in our outdoor haven eating food! After months locked up inside our one-room studio apartments and fearing the worst, it felt like we were reclaiming a teeny, tiny piece of joy – even if we did sweat a lot and use up most of a bottle of factor 50 sun cream.

As we enjoyed our little taste of freedom, groups of people dressed for Pride cycled past on bikes decked out with rainbow flags. This year, Pride and Black Lives Matter have intersected beautifully: men in pink dresses and wigs holding up signs that said “F*gs Against Fascism” sped by, accompanied by women with rainbow T-shirts emblazoned with “BLM”. Someone dressed as a unicorn had “F**k Racism” written on their Pride flag. Another person wore a long pink and blue flag as a cape with the printed message “Black and brown trans lives matter”. There were nods to the pandemic, too; one cardboard sign taped to back of a biker read: “I’m not into mascs but I have masks!”

It’s an unusual time to be celebrating LGBT+ lives, but the last few weeks have taught us well that civil rights don’t have to stop even as coronavirus ravages the world. While I stayed to join the Pride gathering in Brooklyn after brunch, my friend made her way back to her home in Manhattan via the West Village, where people were gathered near the iconic bar of Stonewall. The Stonewall riots feel especially appropriate to remember this year, considering they were started by two black trans women and were a key turning point in advancing LGBT+ rights: like those who would criticise BLM today, many at the time expressed reservations about property destruction during those demonstrations but pretty much every historian now would say that such direct action effected long-overdue change.

The official New York City Pride March was cancelled in April because of coronavirus, but spontaneous demonstrations happened throughout the five boroughs of the city over the weekend anyway. The grassroots Reclaim Pride Coalition organised a Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality in Manhattan, and by all accounts it was joyful and well attended – up until protesters briefly clashed with police at Washington Square Park.

“Organisers have said marchers were unfairly and violently targeted by the NYPD during the event,” my friend told me after she returned from the march. “I didn’t personally witness the clash, but I did notice some occasional tension on the streets.” She added that Pride has an interesting duality in that it’s a joyous celebration every year coupled with a reaction against ongoing oppression. That’s reflected in how Pride itself felt this year: “One second things are heating up, and the next you’re back in Washington Square Park, listening to a peaceful, powerful speech – and then you’re at a bar sipping on a Pride Lemonade.”

All the Pride marchers (and cyclists) both of us saw were wearing masks, and some of them riding rentable Citibikes were even in gloves with little bottles of hand sanitiser attached to their wrists. In the early evening, the boiling hot day gave way to a tropical thunderstorm – the sort of weather which isn’t uncommon during particular hot weeks in the NYC summer. I ran for my apartment and got there just in time as cyclists dismounted and started taking out their rainbow umbrellas. My friend in Manhattan texted me to say that she’d retreated to a bar and that people were dancing joyously in the streets. “People were beautiful, happy, and soaking wet,” she wrote. In the face of adversity, they smiled, twirled and carried on.