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🏳️‍🌈 I Thought the WorldPride Rally Was a Dud. I Was Wrong.

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I went to the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. last Sunday for the WorldPride rally and march.

And I’ve been reflecting on it ever since.

My first impression—not with the parade on Saturday, but the rally and march on Sunday—was disappointment. Attendance? Meh. Weather? Poor. Speeches? Platitudinous.

That’s not how I feel now. The facts haven’t changed, but my perspective has.1

Rainbow banners on one side of the Reflecting Pool with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.
We got to the rally nearly two hours after the start time. Attendance felt thin.
People at a rally with the Washington Monument in the background.
There were more people on the south side of the Reflecting Pool (as seen in this photo) than the north side.

Where’s Phase 2?

Speakers only seemed to be interested in saying one thing. The words came from different voices and vantage points, but the message was the same:

Things are bad now, they said. The only way we’ll right the ship is to work together.

I kept thinking of a 27-year-old South Park episode about underpants gnomes. (Keep reading. I promise I’m going somewhere with this.) In the episode, the gnomes reveal a three-phase business strategy:

A sign outlining a three-phase business strategy. The second phase is a question mark.
I’m just as surprised as you are that I’m referring to a cartoon from 1998 to make a point about an LGBTQ rights rally in 2025. You can see the whole clip here.

The WorldPride speakers’ strategy was pretty similar:

  • Phase 1: Work together
  • Phase 2: ?
  • Phase 3: LGBTQ equality

Are we copying the underpants gnomes’ playbook?

No, We Are Not Copying the Underpants Gnomes’ Playbook

My gut gnome-based reaction was based on the assumption that LGBTQ leaders would have some semblance of marching orders—or, at least, a status update—about what’s happening these days.

That was wishful thinking on my part. And, in hindsight, an unreasonable expectation.2

Let’s face it, we’re in unknown territory now. In many places, LGBTQ people are being dragged backward, but all we’ve ever known is what it’s like to go forward. The threats are no longer hypothetical. The outlook is less certain. Progress is being erased before our eyes.

I shouldn’t have been disheartened that Phase 2 wasn’t discussed. I should have recognized it as a call to action—not just for me, but for everyone.

People at a rally.
Between the speakers and the Reflecting Pool.
A man holding a sign that says "My Outrage Can't Fit on One Sign."
Agreed.
A sign that says, "Queer Existence is Queer Resistance."
This reminds me of a quote from Bob the Drag Queen: “Not living in fear is a form of activism.”

It’s All Clicking Now

Now that I’ve gained a bit more perspective, I’ve had an a-ha moment about all those speeches about working together. Speaker after speaker hammered that point home because it was the single most important message for people to take away.

It needed to be repeated over and over again—at least until we’ve got our Phase 2 roadmaps and status reports—because it truly is the only way to succeed. We need to know and believe it, because our adversaries certainly do. In fact, they’re counting on us to fracture. It has happened before. It can’t happen again.

Preston Mitchell, borrowing a phrase from Bayard Rustin, said we must be “angelic troublemakers” who leave no one behind.

We are having people play oppression Olympics against us. We are having people try to divide us, strike apathy and fear in us, but we cannot let them win.

History will always remember the ones who we forgot about.

Preston Mitchell

Hope Giselle said this is no time to go it alone.

Trying to be the only one, the number one, and trying to be exclusive is just like clothes. Because everything that is exclusive goes on sale.

Hope Giselle

Some groups within the LGBTQ community are already “being unwritten from history,” Giselle said. “But are we going to let that happen? Hell to the no.”

The March

Let’s look at some photos.

The start of a march in Washington.
Lining up on the south side of the Reflecting Pool
A man along a parade route holding a sign that says "We Stand Up."
The march heads toward the Capitol.3

A Final Thought

A confession: We missed some of the rally because I insisted the Complimentary Spouse and I visit the Lincoln Memorial. Frankly, I wasn’t feeling inspired, and I had never visited the Great Gay Emancipator before.

I also insisted we leave the march early when the rain intensified. I’d like to blame it on hunger, but I wanted to duck out because I wasn’t feeling energized.

I wish I’d kept listening and marching. I can’t change that now, but I can recommit myself to continuing the conversation and moving forward.

It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.

The Talmud

Footnotes

  1. To misquote Jimmy Buffett: “No changes in platitudes, but changes in attitudes / Nothing remains quite the same.” ↩︎
  2. It was also unfair for me to compare this event to WorldPride in New York in 2019, or the previous LGBTQ march in Washington in 2017. ↩︎
  3. I’m not sure how I feel about the sign on the right. I’d have gone with “Fascists Are Unfuckable.” Perhaps not as much shock value, but it drops the epithet while remaining equally valid and untelevisable. ↩︎