VivirLatino

Latinos Represent Their Gay Pride

11:00 H | Topics: Activism - Events - GLBT - History - New York City

While yesterday officially marked Gay Pride here in NYC, the season kicked off on Sunday, June 3 with the first of the borough festivals, organized by the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee. The group estimated that 40,000 people attended the 15th Annual Queens LGBT Pride Parade and Festival held in the very Latino hood of Jackson Heights to celebrate and uphold this year's theme, "United for Equality." On that day a street,the corner of 77th Street and 33rd Avenue, was named after a local Latino Edgar Garzon, a man murdered in August 2001.

All the pride festivities and protests, like Saturday's Dyke March, remember the Stonewall Inn clashes on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village in 1969 when the GLBT community responded to the police harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. Stonewall became a rallying point and sparked an organized movement to defend the rights of GLBT people. Sadly, what many people whitewash out of that history was the pivotal role Latinos played like activist Sylvia Rivera who was marginalized even within the GLBT community because of her pushing for the trans community and homeless queer youth.

Currently Latino leaders have initiated educational television programs like Homovisiones and support organizations such as Las Buenas Amigas and Latitud Cero.

Via / El Diario / La Prensa and Gay City News

Image Via / Pride NYC

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