Philly's Pride March returns this week with new organizers and focus

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/ [login to see] /phillys-pride-march-returns-this-week-with-new-organizers-and-focus
If anyone knows Pride at its best, it's Elicia Gonzales.

The 46-year-old queer, Latina activist experienced one of her biggest milestones there. She proposed to her wife, Megan Hannah, in the middle of the Philly Pride Parade in 2014.

"I wanted it to be really over the top," said Gonzales, who's now the executive director of the Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania. "And it was like our biggest Pride ever. When I look back over the video, it's just filled with queerness and Latinidad. It was cool."

But even Gonzales can understand why some people don't feel welcome at Pride, especially LGBTQ people of color. In Philadelphia, she has joined a new group of queer and trans activists who are trying to rebuild Pride into something more welcoming — and more revolutionary.

2022 has been a record-breaking year for anti-trans legislation, according to the LGBTQ rights group Freedom For All Americans. Hundreds of bills have been introduced around the country attempting to ban gender-affirming healthcare for LGBTQ youth, and keep trans kids out of school sports. That, stacked on top of a nationwide reckoning over racism in policing, has inspired many cities to change how they celebrate LGBTQ people.