As I do every time, I participated in New York City’s phenomenal LGBTQIA+ Pride March this Sunday. It was my 39th since 1984 and, as has been my custom since 1996 — ably assisted, since 2003, by my friend Ron Lestor (originator of Harlem’s Disco Party Fundraiser) — I tossed roses to spectators along the avenue, first on one side and then on the other. This practice has become a ritual, inspired by my love for Markiver Grissom, a former boyfriend. A Dance Theater of Harlem second company member, Markiver died of HIV/AIDS in 1995.
Including more than 3 million spectators and participants this year, New York’s annual queer outpouring commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. Slowly, it has evolved into a global demonstration of unity, activism, and resolve.
As much as it is for African Americans, whose legitimacy as citizens and civil rights are also under threat, it’s also imperative for queers to unflinchingly uphold defensive, unified action. The prospect of the Save America Act — proposed legislation so invidious that it might better be called “The Save White Supremacy from Blacks and Queers Law,” going beyond voter suppression — seeks both a sports ban to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in female sports divisions, and healthcare restrictions that criminalize providing gender-affirming medical care to minors.
Sharing a rose with a daughter inevitably meant giving one to her mother, too. 
Dancing roller skater. 
Yellow roses were the most popular. 
Competition for roses was fierce. 
Young Harlemite observes NYC Pride on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. 
An outdoor diner at Vinatería Restaurant. 
A diner at bar of Vinatería. 
Gay friends celebrating Pride at Vinatería.
Far worse than looming governmental oppression are regressing public attitudes. If targeted by the right algorithms using social media, a precipitous rise of homophobia in general, even among Black people, is inescapable.
More and more, ordinary folks espouse the same sort of hateful and dismissive rhetoric about queers that bigoted whites employ to demean Blacks. Denouncements abound. A few days ago, I read on Instagram, “The problem with gay people is they can’t respect anyones [sic] choice to not support them. They constantly complain and cry (so annoying) about their choices not being respected but they cannot respect another person’s decision against homosexuality.”
By substituting “Black” or “Black civil rights” for “gay” or “homosexuality,” it’s easy to comprehend just how hypocritical such attacks are.
Leading the call for queer condemnation is Candice Owens. Much like Josh Hokit, the heavyweight “fighter” who called Michelle Obama a man, she claims that Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is “a man” as well. Why? Because in modern culture, being called queer is close to the most damning insult that can be made. In a post expressing her support for Russia, Owens also libeled Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “homosexual.”
“I think it should be called shame month. It’s absolute debauchery,” she has said of pride celebrations like Sunday’s. Claiming NBA superstar Dwyane Wade’s loving support of his tansgender daughter Zaya is akin to child abuse, she contends that parents who are sympathetic
to children who feel misgendered “should have their children taken away from them … I’m so … against the trans movement …” she boasts. “That is one of the most dangerous things that’s happening right now. Weakening men, turning men into women … the trans movement, is actually satanic …”
As for marriage equality, Owens calls it a “slippery slope” enabling the “moral decline of America.”
She is hardly alone; such voices are to be heard far and wide. However, by the joyous spirit of defiant abandonment, one would not have known any of this from Sunday’s out-loud-and-proud celebrants! Arrayed in rainbow-colored everything, people from 8 months old to more than 80 exalted the right of all to be their truest selves. As opposed to denying the full spectrum of American history and the significance of the contributions of queers, we stood proud in our assurance that Black Lives Matter, that Black history and queer history are American history, too.
So it was that after we traversed from 23rd Street to Christopher Street, then back up to 14th where the march ended, we took the train to 116th Street, bound for Vinatería restaurant, with what roses we had left from 22 dozen. All the way there, along Frederick Douglass Boulevard, we handed out roses to delighted pedestrians with a wish of “Happy Pride!”
