Tens of thousands of people gathered in Hollywood for Sunday’s Resist March, a call for unity among communities across Los Angeles to defend the civil liberties of LGBTQ individuals and to remember the victims of the mass shooting last June at Orlando, Florida’s, Pulse nightclub.

The march replaced the annual L.A. Pride parade in West Hollywood, an event that celebrates progress made within the LGBTQ community, with Sunday’s gathering instead focusing on resisting President Donald Trump’s policies on everything from immigration to travel bans to transgender youths in schools. Los Angeles joined other cities across the nation, which held similar equality marches.

Carrying signs saying “Resist Insist Persist” and “I Am Human,” marchers filled Hollywood Boulevard by 8 a.m. They were led into chants of “LGBTQ people are under attack! What do we do! Act Up! Fight back!”

Volunteers handed out free American and rainbow flags, which could be seen for blocks along the most famous part of Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and La Brea avenues. Organizers said they were inspired by January’s Women’s March and expected 30,000 people at Resist March. Later, organizers estimated the number of people surpassed those expectations. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department West Hollywood Station said no arrests had been made as of 4 p.m., adding that the crowd was peaceful and cordial.

• Photos: Thousands Participate in the LA Pride/Resist March

“How could I not be here for my brothers and sisters,” said Gai Gherardi, 70, of Hollywood. “We’re in bad shape. We’re starting to lose rights.”

Holding an orange, yellow, blue and purple sign that said “Born This Way,” Gherardi stood alongside other marchers, some appearing to be teens and 20-somethings, and many of them coming from far beyond Los Angeles County.

“I’m so proud and so overjoyed to see so many people joining us,” said Jim Key, chief marketing officer of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “It’s the first time we’ve ever had a march like this instead of a Pride parade, so we had no idea what to expect.”

The march’s route reflected this year’s more somber tone, beginning at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, the site of one of the nation’s first gay pride parades in 1970. That’s where the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church and Christopher Street West, led the crowd in a charged sermon about what it was like back then for gays and lesbians and also to remember the 49 people killed nearly a year to the date in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando.

After Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told the crowd that the city would protect LGBTQ residents, Resist March organizer Brian Pendleton asked participants to turn and watch as some of the 49 purple balloons were released into the gray skies.

• Video: LA Mayor Garcetti speaks at the La Pride Resist March

“As we remember those lost, we must not forget the fight for the living,” Pendleton reminded the subdued crowd.

Participants then made their way down Hollywood Boulevard toward La Brea Avenue, then to Sunset Boulevard, with the march ending at L.A. Pride festival grounds in West Hollywood Park.

Organizers said they didn’t want Sunday’s march to be about Trump bashing, but rather a constructive force to push civil liberties and anti-discrimination laws forward. They pointed to the Trump administration’s more conservative views on marriage, for example, which they see as a start to rolling back such civil rights in other states, and an executive order signed by the president in February that rescinded a federal policy allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice at school.

Dan Laventure of Canoga Park said that while Los Angeles and California residents enjoy more freedoms than LGBTQ people in other states, they still view Trump and his administration with caution. Laventure and husband Habeeb Rasheed have been married for a year, but he feels same-sex marriage is threatened and said he participated to make sure those rights were not taken away.

“The fact that my right to marry is threatened,” he said. “My right to health care is threatened.”

• Social Media: MILCK performs ‘I Can’t Keep Quiet’ at LA Pride Resist March

At the afternoon rally in West Hollywood, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, charged up the crowd as she called for Trump’s impeachment.

“Impeach 45!” she said, leading the crowd into a chant. “I’m saying impeach 45!”

“I am you and you are me and we are one,” she continued. “We resist homophobia, … we resist anti-Semitism, we resist hatred towards Muslims and all religions.

For his part, Trump offered no statements or tweets in response to Resist March or other LGBTQ related events nationwide on Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, told the crowd he was proud to be with them.

“We are also mad as hell,” he said. “The LGBT community has always been the tip of the spear in the resistance movement. We march for our Constitution and the rule of law.”

Schiff said Trump lacked “basic human dignity” and accused the president of demonizing Muslims as well as his decision to leave the Paris climate change agreement.

• Related Story: Across US, thousands rallying and marching for LGBT rights

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said the motto has become: “We don’t agonize. We organize.”

She encouraged people to tell their friends in Republican districts to reject the GOP’s health care legislation and demand civil rights for all.

“We want to expand the Civil Rights Act to protect LGBT Americans,” she said, adding that the Congressional Black Caucus is backing the legislative effort.

She said people tell her that it was easy for her to be tolerant, since she’s from California.

“This is not about tolerance,” she added. “This is about taking pride.”

Correspondent Matthew Carey contributed to this report.