Queer Liberation March 2023 (Brent T. Whiteside)
The Queer Liberation March is getting ready to take its daring, humorous and oh-so-gay protest through the streets of lower Manhattan on Sunday, when tens of thousands of participants are expected to demonstrate against all forms of oppression.
Known for its “no corps, no cops, no BS!” philosophy, the annual Pride protest march was formed in 2019 by the Reclaim Pride Coalition, a group of LGBTQ activists dissatisfied with the increasing number of corporate floats and sponsorships with no ties to the community powering the city’s official Pride March.
Over the years, the march has grown to include an increasing number of progressive grassroots movements, including those fighting for reproductive care, immigrant rights, and against police brutality, discrimination and racial inequality.
This year’s protest — dubbed The Queer Liberation March for Black, Brown, Queer, Trans, Gender Nonconforming, and Nonbinary Youth, and Against War and Genocide — will start at Sheridan Sq., near the Stonewall Inn, and within sight of the Statue of Liberty, in a commentary on the idea of “Liberty and Justice for All” and how that applies to queer and trans people.
The sixth edition of the QLM will highlight issues affecting queer progressive communities in New York City and across the globe, including the rampant violence and increasing hatred against trans and nonbinary youth of color and the extermination of queer and trans lives across the world.
Jay W. Walker (Ricardo Aca)
It’s important to raise awareness about threats “against pretty much all youth who aren’t straight, cisgender, Christian and white,” QLM co-founder Jay W. Walker said, citing the rise in popularity of far-right groups such as Moms of Liberty and hatemongers like Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok.
The other main goal for this year’s march is to recognize that, while “wars and genocide are destroying queer, trans and gender-nonconforming lives all over [the world],” there’s also a “great deal of pinkwashing” when it comes to the current conflict in Gaza, Walker said.
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“Pinkwashing,” a term that describes the exploitation of LGBTQ rights to conceal violations of human rights, is being used to justify “the genocide taking place in Palestine by the apartheid state of Israel,” he said. “We reject pinkwashing in any of its guises.”
The front of the march will depart at 11:30 a.m. from Sheridan Sq. and should arrive at Battery Park no later than 1:30 p.m.
Participants who choose not to walk the entire distance will have two other locations where they can join the protest: The first entry point is on the corner of Sixth Ave. and Spring St., the other at Folley Sq, toward the end of the route.
