While millions took to the streets on Saturday for “No Kings Day” protests nationwide against President Donald Trump, Boston flew their rainbow flags alongside anti-Trump signs in a dual “No Kings, but Yaaas Queen!” celebration.
This year’s Boston Pride for The People, an annual festival and parade drawing more than one million attendees—and one of the biggest in New England—was planned for June 14. The existing route and celebration expanded this year to include the many who took to the streets protesting against the Trump administration.
The vibrant crowd drew a wide variety of Bostonians, ranging from babies in strollers to the elderly. Demonstrators carried various pride flags, wore keffiyehs, and passed out informational leaflets on fighting fascism. One organizer, a young man named Jack, who declined to give his last name for safety concerns, leafletted for Refuse Fascism, a national organization that seeks to educate and mobilize resistance to the Trump administration.
“[No Kings] coinciding with Pride represents a lot of people who are going to be, and are already being, hit hardest by this consolidation of fascism,” he said. “I want to be a part of … initiating [a] movement … so we can stop it before it unleashes its worst horrors.”
Others carried signs with phrases like, “Queer as in Fuck ICE,” and “No Kings,” with an illustration depicting Trump as a pig wearing a crown.
Sponsors of this year’s Pride parade included ACLU Massachusetts and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. The groups were also joined in the parade by various K-12 schools like Birches School from Lincoln, MA.
Music from pop icons who’ve been embraced by the LGBTQ+ community, like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, rang out as floats and repurposed trolley tour buses circled Copley Square and descended downtown towards the Common.
Several local political figures were spotted in the parade supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Sen. Ed Markey, who walked in the parade, emphasized the special importance of the celebration and protest being combined.
“Boston Pride celebrates the LGBTQ community, but it celebrates diversity,” Sen. Markey said in an interview with The Beacon. “We don’t live in Donald Trump’s world up here in Massachusetts. We celebrate our individuality; we celebrate our resistance to a dictatorship, to a king. And that’s really what today is all about.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell marched in support of the Pride celebration from Copley Square to the Boston Common, while other prominent community members, like Mayor Michelle Wu and Governor Maura Healey, kicked the event off with a ribbon cutting earlier that morning.
The parade concluded around 12:30 p.m., while protestors trailed behind and marched until 2 p.m. As the protest march continued, the Pride festival in the Boston Common began. The hours-long event included vendors, food, and performances from queer artists like Boston’s own DJ WhySham, drag artists like The Iconic Divas, and the legendary “Queen of Bounce” Big Freedia, hailing from New Orleans.
Attendees had the choice to peruse the various vendors who’d set up shop selling items like jewelry, flags, and even Sonny Angels figurines, or join the amassing crowd towards the back of the Common where life-sized lettering spelled out “Boston Pride: For the People” across the backdrop of the stage.
One vendor, Antonio Meteo Garcia, hosted a “community closet,” where attendees could take any clothes—mostly professional—for free.
“We’re by the community, for the community,” Garcia said, explaining that all the clothes are donations. “Especially with everything else going on right now, some people can’t even afford groceries, much less a whole new outfit for a job interview, which is actually one of the main reasons I started doing this.”
The community closet operates through their organization HELP by AMG, which stands for Helping Everyone Live Prosperously. He founded the organization three years ago while finishing his Bachelor’s at Fisher College, before getting his Master’s in nonprofit management from Northeastern University.
They were inspired to begin the project after living unhoused in Indiana, an area unknown to them, where they were trying to find a job to support themselves. He sought help in a local church’s community closet, only to be refused anything but dresses and skirts, due to his government ID indicating he was born female.
“As long as it’s comfortable and authentically ‘you,’ that’s all we care about,” he said.
For attendees, Boston Pride 2025 was more than just the parade route and festival; it was about giving back to the community. Near the start of the route in Copley Square, volunteers from the Old South Church offered free pins, stickers, water, and snacks to anyone who needed them. They also had chalk available for people to draw outside the front door of the church on Boylston Street.
“I am a straight ally, a 67-year-old white woman who fiercely believes God’s love is for everyone,” one woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, shared in an interview.
The woman stood outside the Old South Church in Copley Square, which is known to be open to the LGBTQ+ community. She explained how she believes God is accepting of and loves everyone.
“Love has no bounds,” she said.
