Organizers anticipate 600,000 or more people to “experience” Pride this weekend, whether that means watching the parade or participating in other events, Bos said. “Every year, it’s someone’s first Pride,” he said. People often travel great distances for the event, Bos continued, some of whom “may not feel safe doing that in their hometown.”
Violence against LGBTQ people and other forms of targeting is on the rise, according to ACLED, a conflict monitoring group. In 2022, the group documented more than 240 anti-LGBTQ incidents, which include physical attacks, demonstrations and property damage. This year is on pace to meet or exceed that number, an ACLED researcher told The Post.The Capital Pride Alliance works with local law enforcement and private security to secure Pride events, Bos said. D.C.
“Pride is about living out loud, even in spite of those people,” Mayson told The Post this week. “And I don’t even acknowledge that anymore. They are the sad ones to me.”Mayson, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, moved in 1984 from the conservative confines of Charleston, S.C., to Washington. “I moved here to be gay,” he said. For Mayson, being a young gay man in D.C. meant Pride parades through Dupont Circle, plenty of activism, and waiting tables at Mr.
“Pride just almost got to a place where it felt like, ‘Do we really even need to this anymore?’” Mayson said. But now “our rights are being threatened” again.