Remembering Pride as Resistance: Callen-Lorde Looks Back as Pride 2025 Comes Full Circle
This year, Pride celebrations around the country look and feel different. Marchers and celebrators are definitively defiant of the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy that has swept the United States since last November. Every celebration feels like an act of resistance. Proof that our communities have always existed and will always exist, despite attempts to silence us.
Before this year, Pride sometimes seemed more like a giant party—a fun, fabulous way to celebrate all together. But now more than ever, it’s important to remember that Pride started as an act of resistance. Callen-Lorde’s vice president of program services Finn Brigham sat down to explain how the movement has evolved and come back to itself this year.
Callen-Lorde, which has cared for New York’s LGBTQ+ communities since the days of Stonewall, is no stranger to resistance. As one of the country’s leading LGBTQ+ focused community health centers, we are on the frontlines of the fight to protect our communities. We hope you’ll reflect with this retrospective and stand with us as we move forward together this Pride month.
Finn — how did you get here, to being comfortable in your identity?
I came out as a lesbian in college in the late 1990s. The first pride I ever went to was Northampton Pride in 1998.
I went to University of Vermont and then started working at the state’s only gay bar and had a nonprofit day job. They had these drag shows and they didn’t have any drag kings, and they asked if I would be a drag king. So I started doing that and really loved it. I got to a place where I didn’t feel comfortable not identifying as part of the trans/nonbinary community if I was doing that all the time. I realized performing as a drag king frequently made me a part of the transgender community even if I wasn’t presenting that way full time back then.
Eventually I moved to New York in 2007, and realized I wanted to present as male full time. Bring a drag king was how I figured that out. I was living as a woman, but when I would perform at the bar I would put on facial hair, bind my chest, had a different name. There weren’t any other drag kings so I felt a little alone in that but I was lucky that that bar gave me a space to explore my gender identity.
New York was a fresh start. I changed my name legally to Finn. I have attended Prides in New York ever since.
Marching with The Center, 2010s
What were the themes of the early Prides you attended?
It was much more difficult to be out then. It didn’t feel as safe. It felt like the repercussions of being out were larger. There was stigma and discrimination. So Pride back then felt like coming together and being out in a way that was much more difficult in our everyday life. There was a sense of, “Look how many of us there are, and the diversity within the community.” The comradery felt stronger, it didn’t feel piecemeal. There was a real sense of community.
“We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” resonated differently back then because it was harder in our everyday lives. When we came together and marched the streets, it felt like pushing acceptance in a different way than it does now.
Has any of that energy gotten lost over the years?
It was harder to be queer [back then]. I think something that gets lost over the years it is has gotten easier to be queer, which in many ways is really beautiful. That’s what people in the 70s and 80s fought for. But I also think that means Pride has changed. I want people to recognize that it has gotten easier but recognize the struggles our elders faced to get us to that place.
What has Pride become?
It feels to me like Pride has become less and less about visibility and more about the need to be fully accepted as LGBTQ+. As more and more corporations have gotten involved and the stigma has lessened, it’s lost some of its activist edge. It’s fun, but the urgency isn’t as strong as it once was .
It went from feeling like this important responsibility to a celebration with my community, which is great…but it has felt like it’s lost its impact over the years from what it was intended to be at the start. It has evolved, which isn’t a bad thing.
This year, how is the energy different again?
Sponsors are backing out across the country. For some people, including me, it makes me want to be part of it more. We’re facing a backlash from society that we haven’t seen in quite some time.
It does feel like we’re still here. We’re going to do this march with or without these major sponsors. It does feel more like resistance in the face of discrimination.
For the transgender and nonbinary community in particular it feels like we’re marching in the face of discrimination, despite our fear. It feels more important to me to be at Pride than it has in the past several years.
Celebrating the legalization of gay marriage, Pride 2015
Are people in the community going harder this year?
People for sure share this sentiment. For the TNGB community it feels extra important to be out there this years. For TGNB allies, this is an opportunity to show up and support the TGNB community that is being specifically targeted.
Are you worried about celebrating so loudly?
There have always been reasons to be afraid, which is exactly why it’s important to march.
The activists that were at Stonewall were young trans people of color, those were the people that were there that night. It is important to remember that today as we’re celebrating. It feels like even more of a full circle moment because those are the same groups who are being targeted today.
What mindset do you think people should take into their celebrations this year?
I would ask people to remember why Pride started and how it was about standing up against discrimination. We’re back there — although we’ve made a lot of progress our queer elders would be proud of. But they’d also be proud that we continue to fight the fight.
I hope people reflect on that and this moment in LGBTQ+ history—and give thanks to the people that put their lives on the line to march in Pride. I’m so glad we don’t have to anymore. But don’t forget.
What are you excited about for this Pride?
I am really proud to work at Callen-Lorde this year. I’ve been here 15 years and I’ve always been proud, but there have been times where our back are against the wall and we’ve stood firm. That’s being tested right now and we’re standing firm, which I’m really proud of.
Working with the Community Advisory Board has shown me how much it means to our community and the country for Callen-Lorde to continue to exist. We’re become a symbol that is really important to people. I want to make a big splash this year because seeing us standing firm in our beliefs gives people hope when they really need it. I want to be there reminding people that we’re not backing down. We continue to be a safe place for them. You can feel the love and appreciation from the crowd when you march. I think that’s really going to be felt this year.
Join Callen-Lorde at this year’s New York City Pride by signing up to march with us [here]. We can’t wait to see you there.