Revelers surround a Christian who arrived to preach during a Pride rally in Lansing, Mich. on June 17.DIEU-NALIO CHERY/Reuters
When revellers gathered on Main Street in Bozeman, Mont., for a Pride festival one sunny Saturday last month, they were confronted by neo-Nazis. Carrying banners proclaiming “pedophiles not welcome” and “white lives matter,” some three dozen fascists marched around the mountain college town shouting homophobic slurs through megaphones.
A group of Pride attendees formed a cordon between the white supremacists and festivalgoers, chanting “we are here, we are queer” and blasting Lady Gaga to drown out the bigots.
Brandishing shields, the neo-Nazis charged at the Pride defenders, pushing, shoving and shooting them with pepper spray, recounted Keldon Joyner, one of the festival’s organizers. “Multiple people were knocked to the ground and got trampled,” he said. “A few were maced.”
Across the U.S. this year, Pride Month is unfolding amid homophobic violence, anti-LGBTQ state and local laws, and moves by skittish corporations to distance themselves from queer communities. The escalating bigotry has made life more dangerous for many and curtailed some Pride events. But it is also steeling the will to resist: Efforts to curb LGBTQ rights, say activists and organizers, have only redoubled Pride’s relevance.
“This isn’t the first time in the queer community that our rights and our livelihoods have been threatened or that we’ve been under attack,” Mr. Joyner said. “It is our responsibility to stand up and to fight back.”
According to a tally by the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, legislators across the U.S. have passed 77 anti-LGBTQ laws this year, the most in the organization’s 40-year history. These have censored discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, banned or restricted drag performances and ejected LGBTQ books from libraries.
Transgender people have been particularly targeted, with legislation barring them from using bathrooms that match their gender expression, taking part in school sports, choosing their pronouns in the classroom or receiving gender-affirming health care.
In Glendale, Calif., two local school board meetings in as many weeks have descended into brawls after hundreds of people showed up to protest trustees’ decisions to recognize Pride Month. At a school in nearby North Hollywood, a transgender teacher’s rainbow flag was set ablaze by vandals last month and picketers showed up outside a Pride assembly.
“These attacks are presented as an exercise of parental rights. But they erase the voices of LGBTQ+ people. It is homophobic to say that LGBTQ+ content cannot be included in school curriculums,” said Erik Adamian, who heads a local LGBTQ group that has organized counterdemonstrations at the school board.
“We have received hateful comments, and we have to think about the safety of our community. But we also know there is tremendous strength in us being together and organizing.”
Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act – dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents – has banned virtually all mention of LGBTQ issues in the state’s schools. One teacher was placed under investigation after she showed students Strange World, a Disney movie with a gay character. When Disney spoke out against the act, Governor Ron DeSantis moved to punish the company by taking away control of some of its land around Disneyworld.
In St. Cloud, an Orlando suburb, the town Pride festival was cancelled in the face of the state’s anti-drag law and a spike in harassment. Kristina Bozanich, the event’s organizer, said drag queens scheduled to perform pulled out. Someone reprogrammed a nearby electronic highway sign to read “kill all gays.” Concerned about physical attacks and unable to afford a private-security company, Ms. Bozanich didn’t see any way to go ahead.
The owner of a photography and creative services business, she lost so much of her own money in the cancellation that she had to close one of her company’s locations. “It’s very disheartening. I have friends who are leaving the state. Drag queens I know have lost income and fear for their families’ safety,” said Ms. Bozanich, 30, herself the mother of two young sons.
On top of the legislation and the organized anti-LGBTQ campaigns, some Americans are clocking a rise in everyday bigotry.
Conway Falconer, 54, a Madison, Va., resident who has spoken out against book bans at her local school board, recounted being mistaken for a man or trans woman while using a Wal-Mart washroom during a road trip through North Carolina, because of her short haircut. One woman, she said, stalked around outside her bathroom stall, saying, “Where is that man? Where did that man go?”
“I’m more wary now than I was before. I have to wear a pink shirt when I go to a public bathroom,” she said.
After embracing Pride in recent years to burnish its image, Corporate America is facing a tidal wave of right-wing cancel culture – and in some cases is backing down.
When Bud Light sent customized beer cans to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney this spring, outraged conservatives organized a boycott of the company and filmed themselves shooting up or otherwise destroying cases of Bud. Target, meanwhile, hid racks of Pride-themed clothing after an online backlash. A union representing Starbucks employees has reported that, in some cafés, managers have ordered Pride decorations be taken down.
In Memphis, Pride organizer Vanessa Rodley said she was determined not to bow to the pressure. Quite the opposite: In reaction to Tennessee’s anti-drag law, she booked 52 drag performers, roughly double the number from last year.
“We were going to move forward no matter what. No one was going to stop us from having an amazing time,” she said. “We wanted to show everyone that it was still possible to do this.”
On the night before the festival earlier this month, a judge struck down the law.
This week, a federal court permanently blocked an Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Other anti-LGBTQ laws are at different stages of legal challenges and could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mr. Joyner said Montana’s anti-LGBTQ laws have also prompted more Pride events. As the state’s anti-drag bill moved through the legislature earlier this year, bigots published the names and addresses of its opponents and harassed them online. After the law passed, it put such a chill through the state that even non-drag-related LGBTQ events at public libraries were cancelled.
So, performers responded by organizing more frequent shows in homes and private businesses – Bozeman Pride included one at a bookstore. The town hadn’t even had a Pride festival in more than a decade. But Mr. Joyner, who is also a drag performer, and his friends decided it was necessary to organize one this year to counter the homophobia. Even after the violence on Main Street, other events across the state, planned between now and August, are still going ahead.
“Our presence is becoming louder and prouder because of this legislation,” he said. “It was absolutely incredible to see an entire community band together that quickly to make sure people were okay. We didn’t let that ruin anyone’s day.”
Adrian Morrow