LGBTQs who want to make their voices heard in protest after last week’s national “No Kings” demonstrations and before the Pride parade have an opportunity June 22, as the annual People’s March makes its way down Polk Street. This is the sixth annual march, and has the full support of San Francisco Pride, unlike previous versions that took place the same day as the Pride festivities.
Started in 2020, the People’s March took place on the same day as the city’s Pride parade, which that year was turned into a virtual affair due to the COVID pandemic. The People’s March came amid the nationwide reckoning over race in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer that May, near the end of Republican President Donald Trump’s first term.
As in previous years, the People’s March begins at the corner of Polk and Washington streets and makes its way down Polk to City Hall, retracing the route of San Francisco’s first gay liberation march – the predecessor to today’s Pride parade – on June 27, 1970.
This year’s march, which will begin at 11 a.m., comes during the first year of Trump’s second term in the White House, as protests against his immigration and deportation policies swell, centering on Southern California. Federal agents have been arresting people without warrants, and sometimes arresting native born and naturalized American citizens, as part of Trump’s crackdown aimed at liberal strongholds. The “No Kings” protests last week coincided with a rare military parade in Washington, D.C. ostensibly to celebrate the Army's 250th birthday and that coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday.
The People’s March is the brainchild of longtime drag artists and activists Juanita MORE! and Alex U. Inn.
“I think that the thing that is going to make the People’s March different is what’s happening around the country,” MORE! said in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Everyone is afraid, worried about their existence, their lives, and everyone wants to come together who is feeling that way and feel loved and protected.”
The march had in the past competed with the Pride parade, which makes its way up Market Street – this year on Sunday, June 29. However, the last couple of years, the march has been held the weekend before, MORE! explained.
“We’re all busy,” MORE! said when asked about the change. “Everyone felt like it was a better kick off for the week of Pride.”
In keeping with the spirit of unity as the community faces challenging times, Suzanne Ford, a transgender woman who is the executive director of San Francisco Pride, was invited to attend this year and will be speaking.
“SF Pride supports the People’s March,” Ford stated. “We want to honor their work, and we are grateful to be part of their event.”
Inn told the B.A.R. that “she [Ford] and I will be standing up there together, so we make sure we always have Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks on our stages.”
Inn added, “We want to uplift Pride this year.”
Federal attacks on DEI
As the B.A.R. previously reported, SF Pride lost some corporate sponsorships in the wake of renewed hostility to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that became more pronounced when Trump issued several executive orders this year targeting DEI. Already, recent years saw some companies backtrack on DEI efforts. The Bud Light brand was pummeled by conservatives after parent company Anheuser-Busch in 2023 partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Retail giant Target pulled back on stocking Pride merchandise in its stories, earning the ire of LGBTQ creatives, as the B.A.R. detailed.
As for Trump, his executive order No. 14168 states that, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and defines sex as “an individual's immutable biological classification” and not a synonym for gender identity. This order on gender identity also prohibits federal contractors and grantees from recognizing and respecting their identities or advocating for their civil rights. Executive orders Nos. 14151 and 14173 terminate equity-related grants and prohibit federal contractors and grantees from employing DEI and accessibility principles in their work.
Several nonprofits, including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the San Francisco Community Health Center, and the GLBT Historical Society filed a federal lawsuit against those orders. Last week, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar granted a preliminary injunction, as the B.A.R. reported.
The People’s March will be arriving at the Civic Center Plaza around 12:30 p.m., coinciding with the city’s Juneteenth celebration. (Juneteenth, which celebrates June 19 as the day the emancipation proclamation was enforced in Texas after the Civil War, was made a federal holiday by a law signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2021.)
Vocalist Ariel Bowser will be singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” widely known as the Black national anthem.
Honey Mahogany, a Black, queer trans person who is the head of the city’s Office of Transgender Initiatives, told the B.A.R. that, “One of the things to keep in mind is all our liberation is interconnected, and we have to come together to fight for our rights, fight for each other, and fight for our democracy.”
“Some of that change has to come through building coalitions, putting away petty differences, and coming together to fight for our rights,” Mahogany said in a phone interview. “Juanita and Alex work really really hard – always happy to support both of them.”
Front and center at this year’s march will be “the unlawful power grabs we’ve seen, the attacks on our democracy,” Inn said. “We have to show the resistance will continue no matter what they do. They have shown us the blatant abuse of power and direct attacks on civil liberties. It has to galvanize us like never before. Our outrage is real.”
The celebration in the plaza will continue till 4 p.m. Organizers are planning it to be “a celebration of culture and community with DJs, performers, and artists’ booths.”
“Freedom isn't stolen in one dramatic, thunderous coup,” Inn stated in a news release. “It's eroded by a thousand small concessions, by a gradual normalization of the unthinkable, by a collective hesitation born of exhaustion or disbelief. It's lost when we wait too long, hoping for someone else to draw the line.
“We are not waiting for permission,” Inn added. “We are not waiting for someone else to draw the line. We are here today, because the hour is now. The decision rests not with them, but with us. This country is us.”