Showing posts with label Drag March. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drag March. Show all posts

Sunday, June 27, 2021

At the 27th annual Drag March

Photos by Stacie Joy

A larger and more festive Drag March took place this past Friday evening... as participants gathered in Tompkins Square Park before making the nearly hour-long walk to Sheridan Square and then the Stonewall Inn.

Last year's edition was a much smaller, and more organic gathering during the throes of the pandemic.

The 27th annual Drag March was an aptly joyous start to Pride Weekend...
... and as the march got underway along Ninth Street ...
The Drag March got its start during the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebrations in 1994.

Here's a HuffPost piece from 2018 with more history:
Brian Griffin, aka Harmonie Moore Must Die, was a member of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP and Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM) in the mid-1990s, an activist who saw the power of drag to confront intolerance and practice civil disobedience in a way that also celebrated queerness. But at planning meetings for the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebrations, Griffin told HuffPost, the committee made it clear that it was only interested in presenting a somewhat sanitized version of LGBTQ activism.

"The committee for Stonewall 25 had actually asked — and it still seems quite unbelievable — that they didn't want anyone to show up in leather or drag. It still, 25 years later, blows my mind," Griffin said. "They wanted to normalize the image of gay America for a mass audience. They wanted to present a palatable image of gay men and women, men and women who were normal."

Friday, June 25, 2021

Friday's parting shot

At the start of the Drag March this evening in Tompkins Square Park... thanks to Greg Masters for the photo... more pics on the way...

Saturday, June 27, 2020

A masked ball: At the start of the 2020 Drag March in Tompkins Square Park



The 26th annual Drag March took place last evening ... starting, as always, in Tompkins Square Park before participants made their way over along Ninth Street to Sheridan Square and then the Stonewall Inn... marking the start of Pride Weekend.

It was a much smaller, and more organic gathering this summer... there was social distancing and outfits incorporating face coverings (including a gas mask or two) as well plenty of support for Black Lives Matter ... EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos...