This is actually not a sequel to a Jane Austen novel. I’m talking about Pride groups around the country that cancelled events this June.
As many of you know, I was one of the organizers of the first protest march immediately after Stonewall. Around 400-500 brave souls came out in the street that day, July 27, 1969. A year later, on June 28, 1970, 10,000 of us trekked up New York’s Sixth Avenue to Central Park, while over 1,000 strutted along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. In subsequent years, as our movement chalked up legal successes, as we became more acceptable, similar events took place all over the country and overseas.
Soon enough the corporations moved in. Putting on annual celebrations cost a bundle, and local Pride organizations became dependent on corporate sponsorship. As always, the sponsors began to dominate the festivities, overshadowing our grass roots groups with expensive floats staffed by hired models—near-naked buff young men cavorting to dance music blasted over loudspeakers. The implication was that they didn’t discriminate and would hire your openly gay ass. The real point, of course, was to sell their beer, whiskey, soda, cars, household goods, etc.
They turned our marches into parades, one commercial after another. Dajenya, one of my comrades in the Gay Liberation Front, asked rhetorically, “Are we a movement or a market?” My wife and I stopped going to the San Francisco parades more than two decades years ago. Even then I thought that if the political climate changed, those corporations would dump their gay workers faster than you can hit delete on your keyboard. The last actual march I attended was organized by Reclaim Pride in NYC, 50 years after Stonewall—no floats, no corporate sponsors, no cops.
Now—in 2026—some of the biggest corporations have withdrawn funds from Pride events, in addition to axing DEI initiatives, to suck up to the Trump regime. (Check out the Advocate’s list of companies not to patronize.) https://www.advocate.com/news/companies-that-stopped-sponsoring-pride#rebelltitem13 Police forces and some local governments have become increasingly hostile as well.
As a result, some Pride organizations around the country have scaled down or even cancelled events. I’m aware particularly of such cancellations in Arlington, TX and Eugene, OR. Other cities doing the same include (but are not limited to) Ashtabula OH, Tampa FL, and Tucson AZ. Some of these Pride organizations have said they were cancelling the marches to “protect” LGBT people from potential violence. Other reasons for cancelling are that we can’t march without permits or corporate money.
Fortunately, at the time I write this, young people in both Arlington and Eugene are planning to march anyway, without police permits or corporate sponsorship.
What cowardice! Why did these organizations allow themselves to become so dependent on big money and government? Are they going to tell us to go back in the closet to protect ourselves?
When we first started marching, demonstrating, and protesting, gay sex was illegal in every state except Illinois. We had to deal with police raids and homophobic violence, and with legal discrimination against us in every aspect of life. When we marched, yes, no doubt it was dangerous, but we knew that we wouldn’t win rights or safety by staying home and asking politely.
We did not ask for permission to exist or beg for corporate handouts. Dear friends: this isn’t the time to step back; it’s the time to fight back.
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