The LGBTQ+ community is very diverse – in terms of race, ethnicity, ability, class, religion, you name it. It also includes a wide variety of things – sexual orientations, sexualities, sexes, gender identities, relationship arrangements, and more. As inclusive as the community is in theory, how much of this is actually reflected in Pride celebrations?

Like previous posts have explained, I compiled a dataset of parade lineups from a large liberal city in the northeast for 2011-2017. I manually researched each of the entries to keep track of which group(s) the entry was focused on or reflective of (e.g. Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Racial/Ethnic/Cultural Group, etc).

Shockingly, for the 1 day of the year dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, very little of the parade is reflective, or focused on, LGBTQ+ people! Only about 20-30% of the parade entries in the last 7 years were aligned with any group under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. The majority of entries are not LGBTQ+ affiliated at all!