Why Pride Parades Are More Needed Than Ever

Each year, Pride parades fill our streets with color, resistance, and joy. What began as a protest in 1969 continues to evolve, but one thing has never changed: Pride is necessary. And in today’s world, where queer rights are being challenged on multiple fronts, Pride isn’t just relevant. It’s urgent.

As a queer psychotherapist who works with LGBTQIA+ clients every day, I witness firsthand how powerful and precarious our visibility can be. Pride parades are more than glitter and celebration. They are emotional lifelines, political statements and public declarations that we will not be erased.

Pride in a Time of Backlash

In recent years, we’ve seen a sharp rise in anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and legislation. Trans youth are being denied healthcare. Books with queer characters are being banned. Hate crimes are on the rise. Even in cities that once felt like safe havens, queer and trans folks are feeling the tension, the fear and the fatigue.

The narrative that “we’ve come far enough” is dangerous. Progress is not permanent: it must be protected and nurtured. Pride parades remind us (and the world) that we’re still here, still fighting, still worthy of joy and safety.

Pride as Collective Healing

Being queer in a society that often pathologizes or politicizes your existence can be traumatic. Many of my clients carry shame, loneliness, or hypervigilance. Wounds inflicted not by who they are, but by how the world treats them.

Pride parades offer a rare form of public healing. They create spaces where queer people can be seen, celebrated and held in community. That visibility matters, not just for those marching, but for every closeted teen, every isolated elder, every person who needs a reminder that they are not alone.

Pride is a Protest AND a Party

The commercialization of Pride has drawn valid criticism. When corporations slap rainbows on products but fund anti-LGBTQIA+ politicians, it’s easy to feel cynical. But it’s important to remember: the parade doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to us.

Pride can be both protest and party, resistance and release. We dance not because everything is perfect, but because we deserve to feel free in our bodies, our gender, our love. In a world that often tries to shrink us, celebration itself becomes revolutionary.

Pride is for the whole Queer Family

Pride parades are one of the few public events where the full spectrum of queer and trans identities can exist unapologetically. It’s where leather daddies, trans* kids, drag performers, queer elders, disabled queers and chosen families all walk side by side. There is power in that diversity and in the act of being together.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, alienated, or disconnected, know this: Pride is still yours. Whether you march, spectate, or stay home to recharge, the energy of Pride, the radical affirmation that you are enough, belongs to you.

Pride is good for Everyone

Pride may center queer and trans lives, but its impact ripples far beyond the LGBTQIA+ community. In fact, Pride is good for everyone. When queer people are safe to express who they are, it creates a more compassionate, liberated world for all of us.

Cisgender and heterosexual people also suffer under the weight of rigid gender roles and narrow definitions of love, identity and family. Pride challenges those limitations. It invites everyone to imagine a world where authenticity is celebrated over conformity, where empathy is valued over judgment.

For parents, educators, friends and coworkers, Pride can be a moment of learning and growth. A chance to expand awareness, confront biases and actively participate in building safer communities. For children, it offers powerful messages about inclusion, self-expression and the beauty of difference.

Even on a psychological level, being in a space where joy, freedom and vulnerability are expressed openly can be profoundly healing (regardless of your identity). Pride offers an alternative to the isolation, disconnection and shame that so many people (queer or not) carry.

Allyship isn’t just about supporting others; it’s about unlearning the fear and restriction we’ve all been taught. Pride offers a window into that unlearning and an invitation to join in something bigger, braver and more alive.

In Conclusion

As a therapist, I often remind my clients: healing is not a straight line. Neither is progress. But when we show up for each other, when we make noise together, when we take up space without apology. That’s when change becomes possible.

So yes, Pride parades are still needed. More than ever. Not because we haven’t come far, but because we deserve to go further.

And we’ll get there. Together.