NYC NOW - A Shifting Landscape for LGBTQ+ Rights as Pride Season Gets Underway in New York

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

In this episode, we look at how LGBTQ+ New Yorkers are pushing for greater protections and visibility as they face a more hostile political environment. Plus, a guide to this year’s Pride celebrations across the city.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Happy Saturday and happy Pride Month. For the LGBTQ plus community, Pride Month is a time to celebrate all those who make up that bright rainbow and their resilience. But it also carries significant political weight. The Trump administration has made several threats to gay rights, including pursuing anti-trans policies. WNYC's Julia Hayward has been. been reporting on the ways gay New Yorkers and their allies are pushing back in this moment.

Julia, what are the biggest concerns among New York's queer community right now? So that's a really good question. New York City is the pioneer of a lot of the LGBTQ plus rights and protections over the last decades or so. But there is the sense of fear that no one is safe anymore. And even in a place like New York City, folks are worried that things that they've grown accustomed to and have always had here are. aren't actually as safe as they once were.

Let's look back at the past six months. In the months that President Trump has been in office, he's banned trans people from military service, he's begun limiting access to gender-affirming care, and he's also revamped certain sex-based anti-discrimination laws. How are local organizations responding on behalf of LGBTQ New Yorkers? I actually spoke to one of the attorneys at the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the way that she described it to me was it feels almost

as if folks are now relitigating things that were established five, ten years ago. Because so many of these executive orders were that executive orders, a lot of civil rights groups are challenging the constitutionality of them, and a lot of judges actually try to block a lot of these directives that have come from the Trump administration. And with that in mind, I mean, what's been the response of local city leaders? I'm thinking specifically of the New York City Council here. So the City Council has introduced and successfully passed legislation. that helps establish gender-firming care for trans and non-binary New Yorkers.

There's also a state bill as well that's making its way through Albany as we speak. And then right now, the City Council and Eric Adams are in the middle of budget negotiations. So when City Council members told me, Eric Botcher, city council members are looking to secure more funding and resources for trans New Yorkers to help with some of the health care resources that they need. Also in your reporting, I know you've talked with folks about their concerns for the LGBTQ community. How do folks plan to fight back against all these threats from the Trump administration? A really interesting thing that's happening right now is this generational

divide. There are older New Yorkers who remember a time pre-marriage equality, pre-certain established protections against housing and workplace discrimination because of your sex or gender identity or sexual orientation. These are the kinds of New Yorkers who are accustomed to going to the streets, grassroots organizing. But then you also have younger New Yorkers, folks who grew up in a time where they had these sort of rights and protections. And for them, this is a brand new thing. And so what you're seeing is a lot of older generations of New Yorkers trying to encourage younger ones to go out into the streets and fight for these rights and protections. You know, we're having this conversation midway through Pride Month.

I'm wondering, how has Pride Month looked so far? Is it smaller? I know some corporations have less funding to put towards all the Pride Month festivities. There are going to be a lot less corporations who are going to be sponsoring or trying to get involved with all the different kinds of Pride marches and rallies that are going to be happening this month. And of course, we have Pride Weekend, which is the last weekend of the month and is expected to be when we'll see the Pride March, the Dyke March, the Trans and Queer Liberation March. we are going to see a lot more grassroots organizing this time around, which kind of hauls back to the tradition of pride. A lot of folks advocating for the same thing that folks were talking about decades ago. And Julia, you know, aside from there being less pride events, pride is also going to look a little different at the Stonewall National Monument, right?

Yes. So I spoke with Steve Love Menendez. He's the self-proclaimed love activist. He's the man behind the flag display. that sits at the Stonewall National Monument. And what he told me was that the last couple years, they've also been able to incorporate the trans pride flag, the white, pink, and blue flag as part of the flag display. But this time around, they'll only have the all-inclusive pride flag, the rainbow pride flag. He told me that for the last couple years,

National Park Services, which helps fund the flag display, only gave them permission to use the all-inclusive pride flag, not the trans pride flag. It's not so much. a rollback of a legal protection, but it is a symbolic gesture. That's WNYC's Julia Hayward. Still ahead, Pride celebrations kicked off at the start of the month, and they're still going. After the break, we'll share a guide to Pride and where to party.

Stick around. June is halfway through, and Pride festivities are still marching on. Staten Island kicked off the month with the city's first Pride Party of the year a couple weeks ago. Then the very next day was Pride Fest in Queens. Here to talk about a few more celebrations happening this month is arts and culture reporter Ryan Kylath. All right, let's do a burrow hop, my friend. Staten Island and Queens have had their pride celebrations. Talk to me about Brooklyn Pride.

What can folks expect there? Yeah, Brooklyn always goes big every year. This year is no different. There was a Pride Night at the Cyclones yesterday. Never been, but that sounded fun. But, well, Saturday is the main event. morning 5K run in Prospect Park, and then there's a whole day of street festivals and live performances and community booths, the whole shebang on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.

And it's all building up, that's actually not the main event, to the Twilight Parade, which starts at 7.30 p.m. and goes south from Lincoln Place to 9th Street there in Park Slope. This might be the only nighttime pride parade in the city, although I guess all wake weekend is sort of an unofficial nighttime parade. But it's got a really like block party meets queer joy, energy. And then also Sunday morning, if you want to keep the party going, there's a dance party at Bam the next day. It's called the Every Booty Tea Party. Every Booty Tea Party? I got to get my booty there.

All right. So Bronx Pride Festival is next weekend. Tell me about that one. Yeah, that's Saturday, June 21st, noon to six. It starts with a march and ends up at the intersection of West Chess. and Bergen Ave. That's the third half, 149th Street, 25 stop. Again, performances, DJs, food, also health and wellness services, big community vibe. The theme this year is existence is resistance, which, given what Julia was talking about, I think that gives you a sense of the mood this year.

Yeah, definitely. Now, Ryan, I saved Manhattan for less because, well, there's just so much going on. The official Pride March is Sunday, June 29th. Will there be other celebrations happening simultaneously? Yes. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Is stacked. If you haven't put in your PTO request for Monday morning, you still have time to get that approved. Already done. Already done. Yeah. Saturday 28th, there's Youth Pride. Very fun to all ages, you know, I guess family friendly at South Street Seaport. Also free.

And then, of course, Sunday. The big, the big day. Pride March officially. starts at 11. And again, the theme is rise up pride and protest. But also on that day, reunited pride. That's a women-centered party in Hell's Kitchen at H.K. Hall. That's 3 p.m. to midnight. If you aren't drinking, there's a gay and sober cruise. No alcohol, but full-on sunset dancing around the Statue of Liberty on a boat, et cetera. And if you're not ready to go home, because you do have the next day off work. That's right. Posh at Nebula and Times Square.

They're running a late night party Sunday night from 10 p.m. to like 3 a.m. Monday morning. So you've got all you want. All right. That's WNYC's Ryan Kylath. Ryan, thanks a lot. All right. And thank you for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

We'll be back on Monday.