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For Emma Haynes and Annabelle Pierce, visitors from Alabama and Tennessee, New York City is not just a city up north that they’re exploring together for the first time. To them, it’s another country.

“To be gay in the Bible Belt,” Ms. Pierce, 20, said, pausing as she struggled to find the right word, “it’s difficult.”

Ms. Haynes, 21, took in the Pride flags, posters and billboards practically on every street, noting that Pride flags were rarely displayed back home. “You can hold hands and not be stared at,” she said, looking simultaneously excited, relieved and nervous.

The women are among four million people expected to arrive in the city this week to celebrate WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, which galvanized the modern gay rights movement. But they’re also here for themselves.