Judge rules in favor of Naples Pride drag performance. When is Pride Month? Florida events
An outdoor drag performance will be part of Naples Pridefest, thanks to a federal judge's May 12 order.
Naples Pride filed suit after city officials denied a permit for an outdoor drag performance, instead requiring it be held indoors and restricted to adults only.
District Judge John Steele granted a preliminary injunction, saying the drag performance is protected speech under the First Amendment.
A day after the ruling, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the decision "both radical and wrong."
The ruling came just weeks ahead of Naples Pridefest, scheduled for June 7, 2025, during Pride Month.
Florida Attorney General: Federal judge's ruling on Naples Pride 'radical and wrong'
Here's what to know about Pride Month and Pride events across Florida:
June is Pride Month, with events celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.
Pride Month is celebrated in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots.
According to History, the riots started in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village, and roughly hauled out employees and patrons.
This led to six days of protests and violent clashes with police on Christopher Street and the surrounding area.
The Stonewall Riots were a catalyst for the gay rights movement.
Parades, events and other festivities are held to honor LGBTQ experiences and draw attention to issues the community faces.
Naples Pridefest is scheduled for Saturday, June 7, 2025 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Cambier Park in Naples.
Organizers say the event draws over 5,000 attendees annually.
"Funds raised during the event will support Naples Pride in its ongoing efforts and provide much needed funding to continue the lifesaving services at the Naples Pride Center including health & wellness services, LGBTQ+ safe resources, a safe community space, suicide prevention resources, youth and senior programs and much, much more," the Naples Pride website reads.
St. Pete Pride's June festivities feature nine official Pride month events and is "Florida's largest LGBTQIA+ Pride celebration," according to organizers.
The organization's Pride Parade Day and Festival draws "hundreds of thousands of marchers, attendees, and supporters to the beautiful downtown waterfront to celebrate the strength, diversity, and vibrancy of our community."
The parade is scheduled for June 28, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival pays homage to the 1969 Stonewall Riots, also known as the Stonewall Uprising.
The Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival takes place on Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors on Saturday, June 14, 2025.
Here's a sampling of upcoming Pride events and celebrations across Florida:
Memorial Weekend Pensacola/Pensacola LGBTQIA+ Memorial Day Weekend: May 22-26, 2025
Orlando Pride Month and Pulse Remembrance events: May 28 - June 12
One Magical Weekend Orlando/Walt Disney World: May 29-June 2, 2025
Project Pride SRQ's 2025 Grand Carnival: May 31, 2025
Treasure Coast Pride Fest: June 1, 2025
Naples Pridefest: June 7, 2025
West Palm Beach Pride on the Block: June 7, 2025
Gay Days at Disney World Orlando: June 5-8, 2025
Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride: June 14, 2025
Spacecoast Pride Rainbow Run: June 21, 2025
Key West Pride: June 22-29
PensaPride Festival: June 28, 2025
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Pride Month in Florida: Where to celebrate Pride events, dates
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USA Today
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While attacks on drag performers may have decreased, attacks on transgender and gender-nonconforming people are on the rise, according to GLAAD. Across the country, there were over 932 anti-LGBTQ incidents between May 1, 2024, and May 1 of this year, with 52% of those attacks directed toward transgender and gender-nonconforming people. While the overall number of anti-LGBTQ incidents is down compared with the previous year's data, attacks targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people are up 14% compared with last year. Those include protests, physical assaults and harassment, among other forms of attack. 'Drag has been the entry point for a much bigger agenda,' Channyn Lynne Parker, CEO of Brave Space Alliance, said. 'What starts as targeting drag quickly has become targeting trans people, especially trans women. It's a proxy. So they're not afraid of makeup and wigs. What they're afraid of is gender nonconformity.' 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'We are living in a time where visibility no longer guarantees safety,' Parker said. 'I'm not sure if it ever guaranteed safety, but the climate for LGBTQ people, particularly trans folks and people of color, has become increasingly hostile.' At Naperville School District 203, some parents are pushing the school board to change its policy over transgender athletes after claims surfaced online that a transgender athlete won a girls junior track meet. The incident prompted Awake Illinois to file a federal Title IX complaint against the district with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. Awake Illinois has previously been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In April, Awake Illinois lodged similar allegations against Valley View District 365-U, which inspired passionate pleas in support of LGBTQ+ youth at a school board meeting for the Bolingbrook-Romeoville district. Chicago Public Schools and Deerfield Public Schools District 109 have also been subject to federal complaints over the past few months. 'I have five children and I've attended more school board meetings in the last two, three months, than in their entire lives,' McMaher said. 'And it's because those who follow the Trump administration have become emboldened to plan all these actions or spew all this hate in a way that they haven't previously, because they feel justified under the federal administration.' Lifelong Bolingbrook resident Bob Skrezyna said he's been to plenty of school board meetings in his life, but never imagined he would be advocating for his daughter and trans youth like her at his local school district, which he described as a place that is typically welcoming to people like her. That all changed when Awake Illinois started showing up to meetings at Valley View District 365-U. 'I didn't go looking for a fight,' Skrezyna said. 'It literally came to my kid's school.' He said that Awake Illinois has since left his district alone and has shifted its focus to Naperville, where Skrezyna has also gone on to advocate for trans students. He never thought he would be going to Naperville meetings to continue his advocacy, but he feels a sense of urgency. Others who heard him speak at the District 365-U school board meetings also encouraged him to speak at Naperville. 'They had to wait until (President Donald Trump) came to power to actually make a move on anybody,' Skrezyna said. 'Most of us had been fighting this fight since our kids were tiny. They're in it just right now because they see an opening. When Trump is gone, the hate is still going to be here. My hope is that if I keep speaking and if other parents like me keep speaking and allies keep speaking, we'll once again be able to drown out that hate.' While the anti-LGBTQ spotlight may have shifted to transgender people, advocates and experts say the hate they are seeing is not new. 'We're in uncharted territory, at least in our active memories,' Parker said. 'So many folks before us worked so hard for us to not experience this, but here we are. What we're experiencing right now isn't new, but it is recycled.' Much of the rhetoric in the targeting of trans people is similar to the rhetoric used against drag performers — which is similar to the rhetoric used predominantly against gay men and lesbians in the 1970s, according to University of Chicago professor Andrew Proctor. Proctor pointed to anti-LGBTQ activist singer Anita Bryant as an example of that. Bryant spearheaded the 'Save Our Children' campaign in Florida's Miami-Dade County in 1977, which successfully overturned an ordinance that granted gay people housing and employment opportunities. Her efforts helped spread the false idea that such protections would allow gay people to prey on children. Bryant's support also helped spur the Briggs Initiative, a failed 1978 proposition in California that sought to ban gay men and lesbians from working in schools. 'Schools have always been a sort of site for these battles, if we're just thinking sort of broadly about LGBTQ politics … I view this as sort of a new iteration of old tactics,' Proctor said, emphasizing how the 'groomer' narrative has now largely shifted from one group in the LGBTQ community to another. Proctor also noted that one aspect that's relatively new is that the concern is not just with adults, but also with children who are coming out and identifying themselves as queer. 'Children are coming out, teenagers are coming out in school, and that's part of what parents seem to be especially concerned about or trying to censor, along with access to information about gender and sexuality,' Proctor said. As the summer kicks off with Pride Month underway, McMaher said they expect to see an upswing in attacks toward both drag performers and events designed for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. After Tuesday's counterprotests, McMaher said they were notified about several drag storytime events in Chicagoland that were being threatened, including one in Edgewater on Monday. Regardless, McMaher said they still want people to enjoy pride events. 'In the state of Illinois, even though we are a sanctuary state, that doesn't mean bad things can't happen,' McMaher said. 'When you see something or experience something, report it. Illinois' attorney general has a form for reporting hate crimes. Remember that no matter what, we're not going anywhere as a community and we still deserve to celebrate Pride.'
