Boston’s Pride parade is back, and no better reminder of it than the familiar roaring and thunderous sounds from the Moving Violations women’s motorcycle club to kick it off. The day reminded many, after a four-year hiatus, of the good feelings of seeing the entire community enjoying themselves.
“I was happy to see so many seniors and young people celebrating Pride together!” Mary Leno told me. Leno is an active senior resident of Cambridge’s LGBTQ community.
Maura Healey, the state’s first openly lesbian governor, hugged and high-fives spectators along the parade route. Everywhere Healy goes these days, she invites people to come to Massachusetts.
“I’m just so proud to be a part of it. I’m proud to lead this state. I’m grateful for the support,” Healey told reporters at Pride. “And I just want people to know, in this time where there are other states going backward — come to Massachusetts. It’s a great place to live, raise a family and grow a business.”
Boston’s Pride parade returns at a time when LGBTQ+ Americans are witnessing a backlash against our civil rights. At least 650+ anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in Congress, with over 400 targeting our trans population; bills banning trans people from sports, banning gender-affirming surgery and banning drag queen story hours in some states. HRC has declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans.
“I live in Des Moines, Iowa, and we have a very big gay community there,” Shelia Maddock told me. Shelia and her sister Carrol Maddock from Brighton, England, visited Boston for the weekend. “Des Moines is very liberal, but our current governor, Kim Reynolds, is atrocious. She has introduced a terrible amount of legislation, so it is nice to be in something positive here like Boston Pride.”
Also, the parade returned after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Boston Pride Committee’s board of directors disbanded in 2021. However, in 2020, the murder of George Floyd and the resulting mass protests across the country was an inflection point for LGBTQ+ people of color in Boston concerning the police; it raised additional fear. The refusal of Boston Pride’s board to publicly support the LGBTQ+ community of color position statement on policing simply further highlighted the decades-long racial strife, along with being too corporate where marginal groups were nonessentials except for photo-opps highlighting diversity.
Boston Pride for the People (BP4TP) has shown how to unite the community. When Boston Pride was dismantled, a coalition of LGBTQ+ community activists and groups reimagined BP4TP as a model organization where its long-ignored marginalized groups — especially communities of Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC) — become essential actors in its new chapter. Last June, Pop-Up Pride laid a solid foundation for today’s BP4TP serving Greater Boston: a rally with diverse community speakers, local artists, musicians, performers, community tables, food vendors, a family area, an LGBTQ+ youth area, and support from nonprofits.
“We had to be the ones to create something for our city where we all could feel included, respected and accepted,” Adrianna Boulin, president of Boston Pride for the People, told Boston Public Radio.
BP4TP spent a year planning with a varied spectrum of intersectional diversity within our LGBTQ+ communities to create an inclusive Pride event. With the recent backlash against our communities, we are witnessing a deliberate campaign to expunge LGBTQ+ people out of public life, with the censoring of discussions about LGBTQ+ people in schools and the banning of books by and about us. These attacks are why coming together as a community is imperative.
“What a joyful crowd! Pride has been revived!” Estelle Disch, my friend, texted me. The new Boston Pride parade symbolizes hope for us to become a community again. I was overjoyed seeing the return of the amphibious Boston Duck Tours vehicles strolling down the parade route, marchers being cheered, bands playing, Rainbow Mardi Gras bead necklaces thrown to onlookers, drag queen divas strutting and striking poses and also being reminded by participants who memorialized transgender people who were murdered with some participants carrying photos of them and others holding placards that said: “We remember.”
I watched the parade standing on a park bench facing Boylston Street in the Boston Garden, where I met the Maddock sisters. Carrol shared what the parade meant to her.
“I live in Brighton, England, and it is amazing to be here in Boston for Pride in what turns out to be an amazing day after a four-year hiatus. I can’t believe it and cannot wait to text all my friends to say, “Can you believe I am here on Pride Day in Boston?”
I couldn’t believe it either.
Rev. Irene Monroe can be heard on the podcast and standing Boston Public Radio segment “All Rev’d Up” on WGBH (89.7 FM), the Boston affiliate of NPR. Monroe’s syndicated religion columns appear in Bay Windows, Cambridge Chronicle, Dig Boston, Curve and in several cities across the country and in the UK and Canada.
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