Queens Pride Parade: Celebrating Defiant Joy in Jackson Heights

Queens Pride Parade and Festival

• 🏳️‍🌈 This weekend marks the Queens Pride Parade and Festival in Jackson Heights, celebrating the borough's LGBTQ community.
• 📍 It is noted as the second oldest and second largest Pride parade in New York City.

Theme: Defiant Joy

• ✊ The theme for this year's Pride is "Defiant Joy", a response to national anti-LGBTQ policies and efforts to create an unsafe environment.
• 💬 "Defiant Joy" is described as a movement, a declaration, and a battlecry, emphasizing showing up, marching, loving loudly, and celebrating identity despite opposition.
• 📣 The event aims to send a message that the LGBTQ+ community will not be erased or silenced, but will celebrate with joy.

Gotham Cheer Performance

• 🤸 Felipe Hernandez, co-founder of Gotham Cheer, will be performing with the squad at the parade and on stage after.
• ✨ The performance will showcase talents, abilities, dancing, and acrobatics, with a core message of love and authenticity.
• 🎓 Hernandez brings a background in psychology and experience from cheerleading at Columbia University and Yale University.

Festival Highlights

• 🎪 The festival will feature hundreds of vendors, booths, food trucks, and two stages with entertainment.
• 🤝 It aims to showcase New York City's LGBTQ+ community, foster community togetherness, and demonstrate strength.
• ☀️ The event is expected to have great weather and is proudly sponsored by CBS New York.