San Francisco Pride celebrates love and resilience amid surging anti-LGBTQ+ laws

SAN FRANCISCO — Logan Oretl had known he was gay for as long as he could remember. But as the 20-year-old stood by Market Street — in the thick of waving rainbow flags, dancing drag queens and a flurry of bubbles — on Sunday, he said he’d never felt more accepted.

“I’m not used to seeing so much open love, and to finally be able to walk around without feeling afraid,” said Oretl, who had flown — for the very first time — from his small town in Ohio to attend San Francisco’s 53rd pride parade. “It’s nice to be able to just be happy.”

Oretl was just one of an expected million attendees at the parade, which flooded down Market Street Sunday morning. Politicians gave out hugs to attendees soaked in glitter; people in inflatable unicorn costumes chatted with members of the city’s rainbow-clad fire department. San Francisco’s streets were bursting with people — all there despite an increasingly hostile political climate and a pandemic that has hit the city hard.

Today, there are 633 anti-LGBTQ+ bills either active or being considered across the country, according to suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project, including two introduced in California earlier this year. During the first three months of 2023, the organization said lawmakers introduced 574 such bills nationwide — more than double the number of bills introduced last year.

The ripple effects of those bills — which Republican lawmakers like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has launched a bid for the GOP presidential nomination, have championed — have been massive. Eighty-six percent of trans and non-binary youth say anti-LGBTQ+ laws have negatively impacted their mental health, according to a poll from The Trevor Project. That’s among a population with already-high levels of mental health challenges: the organization estimates that every 45 seconds, one LGBTQ+ young person attempts suicide.

“I think you can measure society by how it treats those who are most vulnerable. For one of America’s formerly great parties to go after trans kids — among the most vulnerable populations in the country — is shameful,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the Los Angeles-area Democrat who is running to replace outgoing Sen. Dianne Feinstein, during an interview at the parade. “I think it’s more important than ever that we come together to show our support, but also to stand up against hate.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who has endorsed Schiff in the Senate race, sat beside her Democratic colleague, posing for photographs and talking to attendees.

“I’m here every year — and all the time in between — to honor our San Francisco values, which are to take pride, show respect, show love to our LGBTQ community, (and) thank them for their patriotism,” Pelosi said. “Their advocating for their freedom and justice makes America more American.”

Some attendees, like Oretl, were there for the first time. Others, like Caryn Dickman, had attended for decades, in her case nearly 40 years. Back in 1969, Dickman marched in New York City’s Stonewall uprising, a violent confrontation between police and gay rights activists that led to six days of protests.

She remembered being pelted by eggs as she walked through the streets, and how at the time, she risked losing her job or being sent to conversion therapy for joining the protests. Despite — and perhaps, because of — those risks, the riots at Stonewall elevated the gay rights movement, sparking pride parades from New York to San Francisco in the year to come.

By the following June, a small group of activists marched down Polk Street for the first pride parade in San Francisco’s history. Fifty-three years later, Dickman was no longer marching. But she was standing beside her wife, Peggy, to watch the parade for the 38th time.

“It’s still incredibly emotional to be here,” said Dickman, 74. “We won’t be quiet anymore, and no matter what happens, we won’t go back in the closet.”

There were also marchers from across the medical field, with doctors, nurses and psychologists representing their institutions and the LGBTQ+ services they provide. Doug Haldeman, a clinical psychologist walking aside 100 from the California Psychological Association, said he’d been involved with the gay rights movement for 45 years. Early in his career, he worked with people who had been harmed by conversion therapy, the practice of using counseling to try to alter someone’s sexual orientation.

For the next three decades, Haldeman pushed California to ban conversion therapy — helping the state become the first in the country to do so in 2012. Despite that, he and the psychologists around him said it was more important than ever to have a presence at the pride parade this year, given the explosion in anti-LGBTQ+ policies over the last few years.

“It really pisses me off to think that at my age, we’re going back to this fight mode,” said Haldeman, 71. “But on the other hand, it’s very energizing. It gives us a sense of purpose, and reminds us that we’re a resilient community — and that these people are not going to win.”

Despite that, the atmosphere within and around the parade was not one of fear. Lady Gaga poured through the loudspeakers of dozens of colorful floats, and at one point, a group of over 100 corgis and their owners ran to keep up with the crowd. Three young teens — Danika, Noe and Sylvia — watched the parade with rainbow flags draped over their backs, reveling in the feeling of not being alone.

“Dogs are covered in sequins, and everyone is happy and in love with each other,” said Danielle Ricci, age 40. “It’s just a joyful explosion of absolute love, and absolute joy.”