The Pitt News
T h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he U niversity of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | june 5, 2019 | Volume 110 | Issue 5
DELTA’S PRIDE OFFERS SPACE FOR LGBTQ EXPRESSION Vaibhav Gupta Staff Writer
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Roaring music, dancing and cheers filled the atmosphere in Downtown on Sunday afternoon as the annual Pittsburgh Pride Equality March passed through the streets, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and its history. This year, the annual Pittsburgh Pride and Equality March, organized by the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh, was the largest ever. It took place on June 8 in the heart of Downtown, with hundreds of thousands of Pittsburghers participating. According to James Egan, an assistant professor in the Pitt School of Public Health, Pride is a political action and represents LGBTQ+ individuals seeking societal equality after poor treatment in the 1960s. “For me, the first few Prides in the ’90s [was about] the idea of reclaiming public space and occupying with queer bodies all at once was life changing. Because especially in the ’80s and the ’90s, there wasn’t a lot of positive queer representation in media,” Egan said. “To claim the public space felt like a revolutionary thing.” But some Pittsburghers say that the Foundation has allowed its Pride to stray from its origins and become overrun by corporations and instead marched in the third annual People’s Pride. The first Pride took place the year after the Stonewall Riots, the 1969 series of demonstrations at New York City’s Stonewall Inn that kicked off the modern gay rights movement. There were hurdles along the way, especially during the HIV and AIDS epidemic, which
BIG PRIDE ENERGY
Demonstrators march across the Roberto Clemente Bridge during Sunday’s People’s Pride. Thomas Yang |visual editor
PEOPLE’S PRIDE LIFTS TRANS ACTIVISTS OF COLOR Emily Wolfe
Contributing Editor
Three brown paper-mache figures led the People’s Pride parade as it moved through Downtown Sunday. There was Marsha Johnson, a drag queen and transgender activist known for her involvement in the Stonewall Riots. There was Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, another transgender Stonewall veteran who remains a prominent activist. And there was the “baby of the future.” To the few hundred marchers in People’s Pride, the figures represented the past, present and future of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. And this Pride was more than a joyous affirmation and celebration of identity — though it was that too. It was a conscious See Delta’s Prideon page 2 alternative to the other Pride happening in
Pittsburgh on the same day. “Stand down, Delta,” the marchers chanted. The Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh is the organization behind Pittsburgh’s other, larger annual Pride. As the People’s Pride parade marched down the Roberto Clemente Bridge from Downtown to the North Side, the colorful tents and banners of Delta’s Pittsburgh PrideFest were set up on the neighboring Andy Warhol Bridge, just a few hundred feet away. Later in the day, a much larger group of celebrators would gather there for Delta’s Pride. Fifty years have passed since the Stonewall Riots, the 1969 series of demonstrations at New York City’s Stonewall Inn that kicked off the modern gay rights movement.
The first gay pride parade was held one year later in remembrance of the riots, and every year since, there have been more. And since 2017, Pittsburgh has had two competing marches. People’s Pride, organized by the transgender-centered shelter and activist group SisTersPGH, offers a Pride centered on the trans members and members of color of the LGBTQ+ community. Ciora Thomas, the activist behind SisTersPGH, stood on the float at the front of the parade, holding a modernized Pride flag which includes stripes for the transgender community and LGBTQ+ people of color. Delta’s Pride has been criticized by some as a corporatized, whitewashed version of See People’s Pride on page 3