Rain or shine, hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people and allies are expected to come out for Boston’s biggest, annual Pride festivities — Boston Pride for the People’s parade through Back Bay and onto the grounds at Boston Common, plus two more festivals — one for youth, one 21+ — at City Hall Plaza, all on June 8, 2024. (Click here for more.)
The theme for this year’s Pride—“Still Here in Living Color”—is all about celebrating the vibrancy and resiliency of the LGBTQ+ community.
Explains BPFTP Development and Parade Cochair Garry Daffin (in a story in our current print issue), “We are, in this country, still facing backlash from anti-queer people. We’ve had a lot of progress over the past 10, 20, 30, 40 and certainly 50 years. But the more success we’ve had, particularly since we got same-sex marriage legalized, we see this massive anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ movement among the right wing in this country.
“That affects even the community here in Massachusetts. where we have a very supportive infrastructure. We’ve got a queer governor. We’ve got a very supportive mayor. We have a delegation that always votes the right way on us. This city’s a great place to live, yet everything is nationalized. And so people feel that animosity; even here, people don’t necessarily feel safe.
“Part of why we feel the parade and the festival are so important, and that Pride is so important, is because people need this community gathering, particularly post-pandemic, to come together and see each and recognize each other and see how resilient we are and see that, yeah, look, despite all this stuff, we’re still here, and we’re still here in living color. We’re still being who we are.”
This theme is as much about celebrating individuals as it is about community, Daffin adds. “In the sense that being a queer person in America or anywhere else is going to be challenging. We want to engage people in a way that invites them to tell us how they’re still here, in living color, thriving or voguing or living and loving or however.”
More: bostonprideforthepeople.org
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