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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Taking calls from members of Gen Z or anybody for whom this was your first Pride March or Pride celebration, this weekend, 646-435-7280, and Megan in Greenpoint, you're on WNYC. Hi, Megan. Thanks for calling in.

Megan: Hi, Brian. Thank you. A long time listener, first time caller, been dying to say that. This was my first pride. I recently came out and started dating a woman last year. It was my first Pride period that I've ever attended, but first one with a same-sex partner. We did the march on Saturday. I'm just not really a fan of parades in general, so I was like, "Oh, I guess it will be okay." Going there was actually really touching and moving. I just didn't expect it to be as effective as it was.

Brian Lehrer: Where was it?

Megan: It started at Brighton Park and we went down to Westport. So Washington Square Park.

Brian Lehrer: Did you happen to be in Washington Square Park when the police arrested eight people and stormed the area in riot here, according to the reporting I've seen after someone allegedly threw water bottles?

Megan: No, I wasn't. I didn't even hear about that. I feel ill formed, but no, I wasn't there.

Brian Lehrer: You want to say anything about what that emotion was, since you didn't expect it to be so emotional for you, and it was, what did you feel?

Megan: I view myself as very straight passing, so I've never felt any sort of discrimination. I just didn't think that being around all those people, I would feel like the same community solidarity that I imagine other people feel when they felt, maybe have family trauma, or been ostracized because of their identity. I didn't expect to really feel connected to everyone the way that I did. It was just really amazing to see all of these women. There were men as well. Just being able to express themselves and feel comfortable and feel free to be themselves. You see that all the time in New York, but everyone coming together just, yes, I thought it was really meaningful.

Brian Lehrer: Megan, congratulations on your first Pride and for being a first time long time.

Megan: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. Let's go next to Michael in Monmouth County. Michael, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Michael: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Brian Lehrer: It was your first Pride this weekend?

Michael: Yes, this was the first time I went to Pride in New York City. The first time I went to a Pride march was in Asbury Park back in 2019, but it felt very empowering to be marching along with people in the queer liberation march from Bryant Park to Washington Square Park.

Brian Lehrer: What did it feel like? Can you talk about the emotion behind your experience?

Michael: I feel like I was marching along-- I actually went solo. I couldn't find anyone that was interested in marching along with me, but I found members of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America who have a chapter in New York City, the largest chapter in New York city. I decided to march along with them. Of many of the chants that we had, we generally have this sentiment that we shared that no one is equal and so everyone is equal. That includes the people that are queer, and it also includes people that are Black, that are trans.

It goes along with the authorities, the sentiments that people that are police officers in uniform aren't invited into the event. I generally share that sense, man, I understand that, and I feel that, without any reforms, we won't have any common grounds with the authorities to understand them, because I feel that, with empathy, with people in the queer community, it's important that we have that common ground in order to make resolutions with the NYPD.

Brian Lehrer: Did you have any opinion as a Gen Z queer person about this, are the older people at the march too raunchy putting their kink too much on display, or is it something that you even became aware of as an issue?

Michael: I was aware of it very much, or a lot of people that that did display themselves, and some exposing a tire. I generally am not very comfortable with that. I don't like to be in physical contact with anyone. I like to keep my space. Ever since I was in school, I graduated high school back in 2018, and in college 2 months ago, and generally the 1 sentiment that I've always shared that the school always taught me and my classmates was to always keep your hands to yourself, to always have space with everyone, because I generally understand people through communication. I don't like using any kind of physical contact, maybe [unintelligible 00:06:06].

Brian Lehrer: There's difference between physical contact and dressing in a provocative way. Right?

Michael: Yes, that's true. I feel like, for people that want to dress however they please, I have no problem with that. I actually felt more empowered because of it. To be honest, I've brushed stress for many years and I've been very positive in terms of that. This march really made me feel more okay with myself to come out of my shell, to understand myself as someone that isn't a guy, but rather someone that's non-binary.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate the courage it takes to get on the radio and say some of the things that you said even after you have come out to some other people. Thank you so much. Let's go next to Jesse, a college student in Manhattan, I see. Jesse, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Jesse: Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: First Pride parade.

Jesse: No. I've been marching in the Pride Parade with my church. Since I was like a baby, two years old, there's pictures of me with my parents. Now is a really big thing for us to be the rainbow church, even when we are from the United Methodist Church and the denomination doesn't actually support queer marriage or queer pastors and [unintelligible 00:07:38] the statement.

This year I went to the queer liberation march and the [unintelligible 00:07:44] march. It was just great to be still continuing that and just feel still elevated by growing up being queer and just as a kid that always being the-- Pride Parade is just like this march that made me feel I could be whatever, even when I was little and trying to figure things out.

Brian Lehrer: As you've grown up, have you seen the vibe changed, or has your relationship to- which obviously you're not going to feel the same about anything when you're six years old as when you're a college student, but how have your feelings toward it evolved, or have you seen the vibe change just in your observations?

Jesse: I think, when I was a kid, I was really excited about corporate Pride stuff, what we call it now, TD Bank being rainbow and all the storefronts on Fifth Avenue being rainbow and the police and all of that, just everyone, what I saw as a kid just being supportive. In the church being there and we've marched with the gay mormons and other religious communities. I think, over time, I've leaned more towards the ideas of the queer liberation march.

Just that corporate Pride is really just about the company's caring towards people for one month and then not actually truly supporting queer issues and trans issues. In some cases donating funds to the conversion therapy or stuff. It's just become more complicated for me. It's become more important that it be like a protest and something that's queer people in solidarity with other queer people. I agree with caller that said before, we're not free until all of us are free, and I just think, over time, that's just become more and more true for me.

Brian Lehrer: Jesse, thank you so much for your call. Please call us again. I want to read a comment from a caller who didn't want to go on the air. This caller said that she calls in a lot and doesn't want her voice to be recognized by friends and family and so ask, if I could paraphrase, this thought that there's been lots of pivoting and soul searching in her life over the past year and she's come to realize she's bi and she's always supported LGBT rights and has been to previous prides, but never as part of the community. She rode a bike around the city yesterday listening to a Spotify Pride playlist and had a spiritual experience. Whoever you are, anonymous, regular caller, congratulations on that. I hope it felt as good as that post sounds. Elliot in Manhattan, you're own WNYC. Hi, Elliot.

Elliot: Hello, Brian. How are you and yours doing?

Brian Lehrer: Doing okay. Thank you very much.

Elliot: Great to speak with you. Long time listener, occasional and frequent caller. I'm a member of the leather fetish kink community here in New York city. I was very interested to hear some of the discussions in the news about appropriateness. There's a lot of community does that I don't think is very well known. We really do have every right and need to be represented in these marches. I've been marching since 1972.

I've been doing this a long time. I actually had a wonderful conversation with a young person yesterday in the march, who wanted to know how long some of us had been doing this and what gay life was like in New York in the '70s and '80s. It was a terrific conversation that we shared, but the leather fetish community, first of all, we were disinvited to the March on Washington.

Not only were we not invited, we were actually disinvited, and members of the community said, "No way. We are going to be represented in D.C." When the LGBTQ Community Cnter opened in Manhattan, they got the building functional, they had no chairs. It was the leather community in New York City who bought them their first 500 chairs. We were major donors and are still major donors to the center.

We have raised thousands of dollars in support of gay youth, gay seniors, gay media and legal needs for sexual freedom issues. There's a lot that the community does that is not known, not publicized, but of great value. I fall along the side of, "Yo, we're there." There's nothing more provocative about people marching in leather vest chaps or shorts than people on floats dancing in Speedos or in the Thanksgiving Parade and Mummer costumes. It's part of parading.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that some younger LGBTQ people, who maybe are not part of the leather community or just are living slightly more restrained lifestyles, take some of the history for granted because they don't know it and don't realize how central it might've been to paving the way for their equality?

Elliot: They absolutely don't know about the continuing ongoing liberation of Black liberation, women's liberation, gay liberation, Latino and immigrant rights. It's all part of the same picture. A lot of the dots don't get connected. Lots of people forget that it was the trans and gender fluid people who started a fight back at Stonewall when the bar was raided for the second time in one week by two different divisions of the police department, and that was also part of them saying, "Hold the boat, Charlie, enough is enough."

Brian Lehrer: Elliot, thank you so much for your call. Keep it up, after so many years. I guess if you started in '72, this would have been your 50th pride, so congratulations on that. Brian in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Brian.

Brian: Hey, good to talk to you.

Brian Lehrer: And you. What do you got?

Brian: First of all, I appreciated hearing the caller before me, Elliot, that was really insightful to hear about. I didn't attend any Pride parade. I didn't attend any parades this weekend just because I had scheduling conflicts with other stuff, but I did go to the Mets game on which was basically Pride Day with my boyfriend, and that was a pretty good experience because I'm a Mets fan and it was just nice so that we could just go together in public and enjoy the game. That was my pride celebration.

Brian Lehrer: It's so funny that you mentioned that, because I actually watched a good bit of the Mets game on television yesterday and was aware that, at least to my ear, the announcers never mentioned anything about it being Pride Day. I know they have a Pride Night at Citi Field now, but I was thinking maybe it doesn't coincide with Pride Weekend because they want people to be able to do that on some other day and go to Pride this weekend, but there was no awareness or reference by the announcers and maybe half a game that I watched, but you felt that there was among the fans?

Brian: Oh, yes. The Pride Day was on Friday, so there was a ton of celebration at times of visibility in regards to that sense. Yesterday, because it wasn't the specific day, they just didn't feel the need to acknowledge it rather than acknowledge the weekend because they already occurred on Friday, or whether they should have acknowledged the weekend or not, I guess, is a different debate.

That was a really good celebration. I wish I could have gone to some of the marches, I did go to Christopher Street on Friday. I also do think that it also pivots with different subjects, I think the [unintelligible 00:16:22] is very interesting. I told the call screener before that I do want to be a dad someday.

Maybe I'll have a different opinion when I am a father, but right now I really appreciate what the last caller said. I'm afraid that people in our community are going to be almost as shrill as the Pat Robertson before us or the Jerry Falwell's us before using it. The same thing of the children argument was an argument used decades before to try to silence our community. It's interesting to see that it's being adopted by people within our own community.[unintelligible 00:17:04]

Brian Lehrer: You have your mixed feelings. Brian, thank you so much for your call, and thanks to all of you for your wonderful calls on Pride here on June 28th. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

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