Thousands of people with flags, banners and music flooded on Saturday the streets of Washington to celebrate one of the most claiming editions of pride, marked by the cuts in LGTBIQ+ rights that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is ordering.
A few meters from the White House, from where Trump has taken up to four times actions aimed at eliminating rights of people from the group, an rainbow has strongly defended that their rights “do not touch them.”
“We have to be here. We are who we are, and you cannot deny. I don’t care about the rules that you approve. We are still here, and we will be here what happens,” Judy Eckhart told Efe, a 64 -year -old woman resident in Delaware who has traveled this weekend to the capital to participate in the event.
The fact of being defending the rights in practically the same street of the presidential mansion is something that says that it makes him feel good: “I hope that everyone sends a greeting when passing,” he jokes.
Attendees took the city under a radiant sun adorned with collective flags, t -shirts with vindictive messages and banners in favor of queer people and accompanied by more than a dozen television floats and companies.
“We cannot afford to go back”, “you will not make us invisible, more visible than ever” or “rights for trans people, now!” They were some of the messages that could be read in the banners carried by the march attendees. But above all, the claims had a clear recipient: Trump.
“This is a great ‘that fucks Donald Trump. Here we are demonstrating that they will not win,” said James Smith, who traveled from Maryland. “That man is attacking us, but we are going to continue fighting for our rights because we will exist equally,” said Mark Mateo, a resident of the capital, dressed in some meshes and a long vest of the rainbow flag.
Her husband, who accompanied her, was wrapped in a silver monkey accompanied by a cowboy hat and slopes of disco balls. “The look today is almost the most important thing,” he laughs when he said goodbye.
And, the truth is that in some moments the center of the capital seemed to have become a fashion catwalk in which neon colors, skins, feathers, hair scarves and a lot of glitter prevailed.
Nor did music missing the whole day, but especially in the parade. Songs that are already considered hymns of the LGTBIQ+ collective as I will survive of Gaynor Gloria, I’m coming now of Diana Ross and It’s raining men The Weather Girls mixed with some of the last songs of Lady Gaga, Chali XCX or Troye Sivan, candidates for hymns in a few years.
Sivan was, in fact, one of the headquarters of a festival that has taken place in the city this weekend, in which Jennifer Lopez or Paris Hilton have also acted, among others. The city turned to the celebration. In addition to hosting world pride, the 50th anniversary of the first LGTBIQ+ parade was also commemorated in the capital.
However, from the country’s government they tried to boycott the event, or at least bother. The National Parks Service decided to close Dupont Circle’s square, one of the city’s LGTBIQ+ icons. Neither this nor the setbacks ordered by Trump managed to change the atmosphere of this day. Families, couples, friends and people of all ages joined to celebrate and defend a very festive day, but that did not leave aside the claim.
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