As WorldPride comes to DC, queer community vows to be 'louder than ever'

USA Today

2 days ago

As WorldPride comes to DC, queer community vows to be 'louder than ever'
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Organizers say political pressure is motivation to continue celebrating Pride
Organizers say political pressure is motivation to continue organizing and celebrating Pride, although some corporate support dwindles.
WASHINGTON − In 1975, Deacon Maccubbin was chatting with buddies at a party in the nation's capital about attending New York City's Pride Day when a friend tossed out a novel idea: 'Why don't we just do one here?'
Maccubbin had taken a 'gamble' a year earlier, founding the LGBTQ+ bookstore Lambda Rising in the city's Dupont Circle neighborhood, determined to find a home for 'stories that needed to be told.' Business roared, and the bookstore soon become a haven for the city's gay community.
So with similar gusto − and a little trepidation − Maccubbin took another revolutionary step: launching the District of Columbia's first Pride celebration.
'We didn't know whether anyone would show up or not. It was something that had never been done before,' he told USA TODAY.
When start time ticked closer that inaugural Pride Day, only a handful of people milled around the bookstore. Maccubbin fretted.
'One of the organizers I had hired said: 'Don't worry. They are just on gay time,'' he recalled. 'And about 15 minutes later there were 2,000 people on the street.'
Now 50 years later, DC's Capital Pride Alliance is hosting WorldPride − a global festival that promotes LGBTQ+ visibility and awareness − at another historic juncture: when the queer community's rights are increasingly in hostile crosshairs.
With more than five decades of activism under his belt, Maccubbin remains undaunted. 'The fight goes on. There will always be people who try to push you back. But you stand up and keep going forward all the time.'
A global festival takes on a bigger meaning
WorldPride, which began May 17, is brimming with events and celebrations – musical performances, fashion shows, discussion groups and subcommunity gatherings such as Trans Pride, Latinx Pride, Youth Pride and beyond. The festival culminates with the city's Pride Parade on June 7 and a massive rally and march from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol on June 8.
Ryan Bos, who has been executive director of DC's Capital Pride Alliance since 2011, was thrilled when the group's bid to host WorldPride was accepted in 2022. Bos couldn't wait to showcase the city's rich culture on the world stage.
But as threats to LGBTQ+ freedoms began to spiral in recent months, the festival took on a new sense of urgency, he said.
'People have begun to see this as much more of a historic moment – one that is necessary to galvanize our community.'
'Who believes in human dignity and decency these days?'
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office to dimantle diversity, equity and inclusion practices − which can offer protections for LGBTQ+ people − in the federal government.
As more directives rolled out, the transgender community has been particularly targeted: The administration moved to halt gender-affirming care for minors, revived a ban on transgender people in the military, removed references to the community from the Stonewall National Monument website, and directed that federal agencies recognize only two sexes, male and female − affecting the ability of transgender people to identify on items such as passports and sowing fear and anxiety among travelers.
The actions have fueled a backlash, leading some corporate sponsors to yank support of Pride parades and even prompting safety concerns for LGBTQ+ people traveling internationally to the WorldPride festival.
But the climate has also cemented a gritty resolve around WorldPride that the queer community is not going anywhere, Bos said.
'People see … the world closing in and feel: Who has our back? Who truly believes in human dignity and decency these days? We don't want to be steered back into the closet. And we won't,' he said. 'We will remain visible. We are a resilient community. We've been through challenges like this before.'
Historian brings city's queer history to life
Katherine Fisher is the founder and lead guide for DC PrideWalks, the city's first tourism company dedicated to highlighting the queer history of the nation's capital from its monuments to its neighborhoods.
Fisher, a historian, started PrideWalks in 2021 after a former LGBTQ+ student who had dealt with addiction and other struggles 'lost his community' during COVID-19 − and died of an overdose. Fisher, who had studied queer history in grad school, said the tragedy 'lit a fire in me.'
She has been intent on bringing Washington's LGBTQ+ history out of scholarly books into the public discourse, and through the walks she hopes to encourage engagement and activism, even among allies. As WorldPride takes the stage in DC in a challenging time, Fisher says friends in the LGBTQ+ community have decided to 'fight back with joy and celebration.'
Fear often drives erroneous assumptions about LGBTQ+ people, she said. Fisher hopes her tours help educate people − and thwart those misconceptions.
'When I take people out on the street and I tell them about someone called Evelyn Hooker, no one has ever heard of her,' she said. 'But she is as important to the queer rights movement as Rosa Parks to civil rights or Eleanor Roosevelt to women's rights.'
'Oh no no no! You can't take this away from us'
Brooke Eden, a country singer/songwriter who will be performing at WorldPride, recalls being warned to 'stay in the closet; otherwise I'd lose my career' when she met her soulmate.
She found solace and therapy in songwriting, and after five years she was able to come out. Eden married wife Hilary in 2022 in Nashville, and the couple welcomed their first child in November.
Her music has helped share her journey, and she hopes her words touch and uplift others who might be struggling with acceptance.
Eden has been flooded with messages from people 'who never saw their story in country music. And then one of my videos was playing on CMT or YouTube or TikTok, and now people are saying, 'Oh my gosh, I'm not alone; I'm not the only Southern person who has also found queer joy and queer love.'
One of Eden's hit songs is 'Outlaw Love,' which she thinks resonates perfectly with WorldPride as an 'outlaw movement, a kind of rebellion,' she said.
'The WorldPride stage is in front of the Capitol building at a time when they are trying to silence us, put us back in the closet, make us feel ashamed, take away so many of our freedoms, pull back DEI,' she said.
'And we are like: 'Oh no no no! We are going to the nation's capital; we are going to be louder than ever. You can't take this away from us. We are going to be ourselves.''