New York Pride march centers trans communities amid Trump pressure

New York’s 57th Pride March moved up Fifth Avenue on Sunday with its focus squarely on trans and nonbinary communities, even as organizers and city leaders cast the celebration against mounting pressure from Washington. The march began at 26th Street and Fifth Avenue at noon and headed toward 15th Street and Seventh Avenue, free to attend and framed as both a celebration and a demonstration.

This year’s theme, “For All of Us,” took its cue from Marsha P. Johnson’s line, “There is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” Heritage of Pride, the nonprofit behind the city’s official LGBTQIA+ Pride events, said the day commemorated the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, keeping the route tied to Greenwich Village and the movement that began there. The annual march has long served as a public marker of visibility, but this year’s messaging centered the practical stakes facing trans New Yorkers beyond the parade route.

Those stakes were sharpened by federal pressure on New York City hospitals that have provided care for transgender young people, a fight that has left many in the city’s LGBTQ+ community looking to local officials for protection. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said his administration is committed to protecting trans and queer New Yorkers from federal attacks, and his government created the city’s first Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs while setting aside $15 million for gender-affirming health care.

Organizers also used the event to channel support back into the city’s queer infrastructure. NYC Pride said it awarded $75,000 to 11 local LGBTQIA+ nonprofits and continued a 2026 silent auction and fundraising push to support the march itself. The celebration’s grand marshals included Dominique Jackson, Peppermint, Bernie Wagenblast, Bowen Yang, and Gays Against Guns, a lineup that reflected both the city’s entertainment culture and the movement’s activism.

By the time the march stepped off, Fifth Avenue had become a display of local affirmation and political anxiety at once. New York’s leaders presented the city as a refuge, but marchers also carried the fear that federal decisions could still reshape trans health care and the scope of civil-rights protections far beyond Sunday’s crowds.