Donald Trump does not usually leave the White House to go around Washington. If I had done it this week, I would surely have not liked the view: a city adorned with the colors of the rainbow to celebrate the World Pride. It is a special occasion: the American capital, of a long tradition in the homosexual struggle, always celebrates the
Every year, and chance (and only that, because the decision was taken since 2022) has wanted Washington to touch precisely now that Trump has returned to power with an agenda that threatens the conquests of the collective achieved after decades of struggle. The US president launched his attacks from the beginning of his second term, at the blow of, among others, executive decisions against the diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies and decrees that have been especially primed with trans people.
His administration only recognizes the female and masculine sexes and aspires to prohibit minors gender treatments at the federal level, the participation of the trans military in the army and “has denied us our right to exist,” explained a young trans named Kae on Saturday (who did not mean his last name to avoid being “indicated”). He referred to that other government decision that does not allow him to be a woman in his passport. “This time is important, there is a lot at stake,” he added before the start of the traditional float parade in
As a consequence of the purge of the Dei programs, the event has lost financing of fears of the Trump administration to retaliate against them. Signatures such as the Internet Provider Comcast, or the Consultant Deloitte have retired the funds from previous editions, but in the parade they did exhibit, the Hyatt or Starbucks hotel; The two, American companies. But they are an exception: 39% of companies with a tradition of contributing to the celebration of pride events throughout the United States plan to reduce or eliminate their donations in this 2025, especially those with contracts with the government.
With those background, the parade began at about 14:00 in a more claiming tone than that of previous years. The tour started in one of the corners of 14th Street, artery of the Washington leisure, and extended over about three kilometers. His drawing was altered with respect to past editions, in anticipation that the city would receive tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world, among which was a delegation of Barcelona’s candidacy to organize the World Pride of 2030 (“it will not be easy; for the moment, we compete with London, Bangkok and Montreal,” said Andoni Ibáñez, the general coordinator of Pride BCN) Antonelli. He was in the city to participate in a conference on human rights and asked that people do not forget that “the attacks on trans in countries like this, Turkey, Hungary or Argentina are to distract us from the essential: the progress of an ultra agenda, which has women also in the spot to women.”
In the middle of the bustle of the parade, among the biker groups, the marching band of a black and religious institute in favor of rights, the drag Sister Pattie O’Poender, arrival of republican initiatives throughout the country to ban shows such as yours. And if the one who was manufactured a hat with the statue of freedom dressed in men’s panties and leather strips, he left Trump the message that “the gay community intends to continue here,” Patrick Algwer, at the foot of the float of the Washington Equal Chamber of Commerce, recalled that “many people have thought about it before coming from abroad because it has become a very unpleasant place for them”.
In addition to the march, Washington has hosted about 300 acts for three weeks: the memory of the first pride held in the city, to exhibitions, film cycles and an extraordinary concert that brought together two icons on stage queer of the music of yesterday and today: Jannelle Monae and Grace Jones.
And the White House? His spokesman, Karoline Leavitt made it clear that he was not going to do anything to mark the occasion, while Pete Hegesh, secretary of Defense, announced precisely this week his intention to remove a ship from the fleet the name of the legend of the Gay Harvey Milk fight.
A choir in the spotlight of the White House
Another of the main dishes of the program, which will conclude this Sunday with a free performance of the Doechii Raple, is the celebration of an international choral contest. This year, and again because of Trump, he had a greater interest, he has erected in another symbol of resistance to his policies.
It all started when the president of the scenic arts of the city, and proclaimed that he would fumigate from his programming what the American right calls “the virus woke“. The first recital to fall was one of the GMCW with the National Symphony Orchestra, scheduled for May. The program included a piece based on a children’s story LGTBI+ on a turkey that learns to value its difference against the gray plumage of the pigeons.
Trump failed to silence the nearly 250 members, not only gay men, of the choir, who have sung the piece for different scenarios of the city four times in the last two weeks. At the end of one of those recitals, held in a church in the center of Washington, Thea Kano, who is its director and has 21 seasons linked to the choir, explained that he considers this “the most difficult moment” that the community has faced at this time.
“When we fight for the approval of equal marriage [en 2015] It was a great fight, but that was different: it was about achieving a goal, not to try not to take us out what we have. The trans community is being attacked, and our immigrant members are afraid. We will stop singing when full equality has been achieved, ”added Kano, who warned that they will not step on the Kennedy Center until they feel“ accepted ”.
The Italian Alessandro Varela, consultant for NGO and member of the GMCW, sees at least something positive. “There is a happy part of the idea of El Prideo returns to its essence, to consider as a battle, as a protest. For too long, it was a place for advertising, for brands, and for the propaganda of the State. Now that the government and sponsors have disappeared, we have realized that there was no change of paradigm, but were there to be there to be content to a democratic administration.”
Varela also celebrates that Trump’s attack caused an increase in donations to the choir from all over the world. “As a group, we were born [en 1983] To respond to the deadly epidemic among Washington’s gay men, and now it is time to help trans people, not binary, or other attacked groups. ”
Those eighties are a central part of the story of a street exhibition that commemorates the history of those struggles in Washington. It is a story that goes back 60 years, recalls Alex Fraioli, a member of the Rainbow History Project Board, which organizes the exhibition and has been dedicated for a quarter of a century to the preservation of that memory. “The first picket in defense of homosexual rights in the history of the United States was [antes que Stonewal, en Nueva York] In 1965, at the door of the White House. ”And the anecdote sounds strangely present: the protesters were officials, such as those of Elon Musk’s doge, who threatened to say goodbye for their sexual orientation.
Fraioli also agrees that this is “probably the worst moment” of that story to whose study is voluntary. “It may be because we are living it and that makes it more intense,” he admits. “We have progressed a lot and we have won battles, but what happened with the right to abortion [que el Tribunal Supremo tumbó en 2022 a nivel federal] It tells us that, for example, equal marriage is no longer something that we can take for granted. ”
And in that, he is not alone. The fear that the Supreme Relations that conquest has appeared again and again these weeks in conversations held with members of the LGTBIQ+ community gathered in Washington for its worldwide celebration. Fraioli has at least one comfort: he laughs at thinking that, in the improbable case that Trump goes out to take a walk through Washington, he will give Bruces with the panels of his exhibition, which will remain until after the day of independence in a square between the White House and the old post office. That building in which during his first term the real estate magnate had a hotel.
