Dem
47
GOP
53
Pride Month came to an end yesterday, of course. We have a piece in the on-deck circle about how Pride Month got (aggressively) tied up in the culture wars. Today, however, we want to yield the floor to reader P.W. in Valley Village, CA, for an accounting of events on the ground (and a few other insights). Take it away, P.W.:
Official Electoral-Vote LGBTQ+ Pride correspondent checking in with a report from Pride 2025 to finish off the month. Here's the latest, starting off with a trip back to 1970 for a modicum of context.
To mark the first anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riot in NYC, events were planned and did take place in seven U.S. cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and three others, but ironically, not San Francisco). Given the political climate of the time, obtaining any official civic blessing from these cities was an impossibility. So they were planned as sidewalk protest marches, which didn't require permission or permits. With a single prescient exception.
Unlike the other cities, the three local activists (Bob Humphries, Morris Kight, and Troy Perry—all three of whom I know!) organizing the Los Angeles event wanted theirs to be a celebration—a parade rather than a march. For that, there was no alternative but to apply to the city for a parade permit. Hoping to slip the reason for the parade past Los Angeles city officials, it was "Christopher Street West" that applied for the parade permit (Christopher Street being the NYC street where the Stonewall Inn was located). Unfortunately, the ruse was discovered and the permit was denied, resulting in a pitched legal battle. Eventually, the local ACLU chapter filed a lawsuit that resulted in forcing the City of Los Angeles to issue the permit—on a Friday afternoon, for a parade planned for Sunday. The parade happened, with floats and marchers and 30,000 spectators taking to Hollywood Boulevard a scant two days later.
And this L.A. parade, uniquely among these first seven Pride events, was part Mardi Gras celebration ("We're here! YIPPEE!!!") and part protest ("We're here! Take THAT!!!"). This has been true of every subsequent L.A. Pride celebration. That said, the parade does adapt depending on the needs of the year in which it takes place. Participants heavily protest in the years of the Briggs Initiative, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and Proposition 8, etc., and are more celebratory during the intervening years, with full expectation that the celebration/protest ratio and the issues involved will change from year to year.
So, then, what about 2025?
This year's LA LGBTQ+ Pride parade was similar to those of recent years. Community groups marching down the street. Local bars and businesses promoting themselves, with a small number of national concerns doing the same. And, as in previous years, lots and lots of employee affinity groups from major corporate entities, again with the transgender pride colors in prominent display.
But the transgender display and transgender parade participation had a noticeably different character from what marched down Hollywood Boulevard in 2023 and before. The earlier events emphasized trans protest. But in 2024, and again this year (somewhat surprisingly), the emphasis was on transgender celebration. Protest from that community was relatively muted.
Instead, the big change this year showed up in an unexpected place, namely the character of how elected officials chose to present themselves. Elected officials riding in the back of a convertible have been a fixture of Pride parades for many decades, but this year a number of them dramatically upped their game, replacing their convertibles with floats. Big floats. Blaring music floats. Crawling with people floats. "I'M HERE!!!" floats. Allowing these elected to use the protest element of the Pride parade to express their anger about what's going on with the national government in a loud and visible way.
The protest aspect also provided fertile ground for yet another burning issue to be expressed, namely anger against ICE, and the war that the federal government has declared against our local immigrant communities. Marching group after marching group carried signs and banners like "ICE Out Now!" and "Immigrants are the lifeblood of our communities." The Mexican Pride flag, carried by marching contingent after marching contingent, was a visible presence from the beginning of the parade right through to the end. In other words, the outrage against ICE was widespread and obvious—a broadly felt sentiment. Good.
There could be no doubt that participants were reacting to what's happening now at the hands of the Trump administration. The demonization of our transgender countrymen, the war being waged against our immigrant communities, the destruction of USAID, and the attacks on our institutions of higher learning. People are angry. REALLY angry. And I would suggest the history of marriage equality provides a template for what's likely to come once this insanity finally ends.
The battle for marriage equality in the U.S. started off with just a few isolated wins (the first in Massachusetts in 2004), followed by a seemingly endless string of losses: 32 ballot initiatives going before the voters, each of which produced the same result: Marriage equality being soundly defeated, with the marriage equality proponents then tucking their tails between their legs and slinking off into the corner to lick their wounds. That is, until ballot initiative number 33: California's Proposition 8.
When Prop 8 was approved by the voters, thus banning gay marriage in California, what resulted, instead of the tail-between-the-legs pattern of the previous 32 defeats, was unbridled anger. I was at the big official Prop 8 Election Night party in Los Angeles and witnessed the turn-to-boil firsthand. The anger resulted in massive demonstrations in Salt Lake City in front of the Mormon Temple, starting that night, followed by protest after protest erupting all over the state, the country, and the world in the ensuing days and weeks. This led to rapid-fire positive developments, one of which was the odd couple of Ted Olsen and David Boies teaming up to fight the successful legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Prop 8.
So... 32 marriage equality ballot initiative losses—nothing. The 33rd marriage equality ballot initiative loss—everything. The difference? For the first 32, nothing was taken away. Just a reaffirmation of the status quo. But for number 33, marriage equality had been the law in California for 5 months, and then it was taken away. That made all the difference, resulting in the slingshot forward to have marriage equality become the law of the land just a few years later.
So... circling back to what's happening now. Things are being taken away by the Trump administration at a blinding rate, and people are angry. Really angry. Prop 8-level angry. While that which can be done to fight back now is limited, the battles that can be fought are being fought. That's good. But alongside this, we're lying in wait. For what needs to be waged is an asymmetric defense worthy of Elphaba. Elphaba? Say what? Read on.
In the final scene of Wicked (2024), (the "good" witch) Glinda talks at length, imploring (the "bad" witch) Elphaba to go and talk to the Wizard and Madame Morrible. "Talk to them. It'll be okay. I'm sure something can be worked out." And, indeed, this is what Glinda would do. Because for Glinda, the system works for her. And she's extremely adept at bending the system to her will. Subterfuge is one of the tools in her toolkit, and she uses it directly on the system to get what she wants.
Elphaba, however, works from an entirely different playbook, as the system is stacked completely against her. This means the only way she can get what she wants is to do so by circumventing the system and working around it. Bending it when she can, and breaking it when she can't. Elphaba has had to develop the instincts to recognize when the system can't be trusted, and then do what she needs to do to get to her end goal.
And that's where we are today. With the Trump-led federal government running roughshod over democratic norms and doing active damage as far as the eye can see. Whatever the system has been in the past, it no longer is. The system itself has become the enemy.
For those of our countrymen for whom the system has worked (the Glindas of the world), this is new territory. The skills to cope and fight back have to be learned. But for the marginalized communities (the Elphabas)... been there, done that, here we go again. The hard-won skills are honed and ready to deploy. So gentle readers, the path forward is this: Look to the marginalized communities for inspiration and the skills needed to prepare for the coming slingshot forward. For once the insanity of the Trump administration has finally climaxed, akin to what happened with Prop 8, the anger for what has been taken away will fuel a slingshot forward to get it all back... and more. So, prepare. Something that every single one of us can do. And we must. Some in small ways. Others in large. All important. Prepare.
Be Elphaba, not Glinda—prepare for the slingshot forward.
Thanks, P.W! We'll have the piece on the politics of Pride tomorrow.