At New York’s Queer Liberation March, Pride’s Thorny Politics Came to the Fore

In 2019, a group of queer activists banded together to form the Reclaim Pride Coalition—established both to honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and to offer a fierce rebuke to the ongoing corporatization of the annual NYC Pride Parade. As the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. has entered the mainstream conversation of American politics, the founders and organizers behind the Reclaim Pride Coalition have grown frustrated at the co-option of the movement by brands, corporations, and law enforcement bodies who have exploited Pride as an opportunity to burnish their public image—all the while continuing to fund and support political bodies with regressive stances on queer rights.

The first Queer Liberation March was held in 2019, but in the years following, its mandate has only grown stronger; and in the wake of last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the energy of the march felt more forceful than ever. With the march’s focus on reproductive justice and bodily autonomy, and a particular emphasis on the communities of color who will be disproportionately affected by the ruling, the resounding sentiment was one of solidarity with people whose fundamental right to choose whether or not to have a baby is now under threat.

To celebrate the Queer Liberation March, photographer Ryan McGinley took to the streets of Manhattan to capture the voices leading the charge on bringing the conversation around Pride into the 21st century—and in the words of the collective behind Reclaim Pride Coalition themselves: “No corps, no cops, no B.S.!”