By Donald Gilpin

Princeton will raise the Pride flag on Friday at noon at Monument Hall to celebrate Pride Month and to kick off a series of events featuring a Pride in the Plaza disco dance party in Hinds Plaza on June 6 and the eighth annual Princeton Pride Parade on June 14, marching from the Municipal Building on Witherspoon Street to the YWCA on Paul Robeson Place, where the Pride After-Party will take place.

“Princeton’s Pride Flag Raising and Pride Month’s events are all part of our year-round actions that show that Princeton is a community that welcomes and celebrates everyone,” Princeton Mayor Mark Freda wrote in an email. “People do not need to fit a narrow and pre-determined label to come here and enjoy visiting and/or living ere. We are all people, we all deserve to be treated the same, respected the same.”

Sara Wasserman, local community organizer and queer educator at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice (BRCSJ), that is organizing many of the Princeton Pride Month 2025 events, observed, “I think we’re going to have an even stronger, bigger, better and brighter celebration of queer joy than ever before because this is a time when we need it.”

Citing difficult times with the federal government targeting the queer community, “especially our trans kids,” and corporate sponsors divesting from DEI associated organizations, BRCSJ Chief Activist Robt Seda-Schreiber predicted “an even more fraught future ahead,” adding, “and that’s why our powerful Pride and awesome After-Party become so much more meaningful, because we can gather together and celebrate queer joy.”

Pride Month began as a commemoration of the June 1969 Stonewall Uprising, when patrons of a New York City gay bar and their supporters fought back against police officers raiding the bar. In the following decades many celebrated what they called Gay Pride Day in June each year, until in the mid-1990s June was officially proclaimed as LGBT History Month. Over the past few years, thousands of Princeton residents and visitors have participated in the Princeton Pride Parade each year.

Friday’s Pride Flag raising will be followed on Saturday, May 31 by the HITOPS Queer Prom, “Queernival,” for young people ages 11 to 18 at the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) from 5 to 8 p.m.. “Come dressed as your boldest and most fabulous self,” the HITOPS flyer reads. “Come as a colorful clown, a dazzling ringmaster, the tattooed superstar you’ve always dreamed of, or slay in your favorite prom look. Anything goes at the Queernival!”

Then, on Monday, June 3 at 11:30 a.m., the BRCSJ will host New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin at the BRCSJ on Stockton Street for a community conversation about police reform and transparency as it impacts the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Pride Month speaks to the best values of our communities, of our state, and of our country,” said Platkin, as quoted in a BRCSJ email. “From fighting bias and hate to re-imagining policing, we’re building a safer, more inclusive state. We stand with New Jersey’s trans community and we will continue to fight for your right to live openly and authentically.”

Pride on the Plaza on Friday, June 6, from 7 to 10 p.m. will be a community all-ages disco dance party with live music by The Einstein Alley Disco Funk Machine, marking the 50th anniversary of the height of the disco era.

The event will also feature an appearance by drag artist Divinity Banks and a chance for everyone to join in on the dancing in Hinds Plaza. “Get your groove on by wearing clothing inspired by the era,” reads the flyer from Princeton Public Library (PPL), which is sponsoring the event along with ACP, HiTOPS, McCarter Theatre, the Municipality of Princeton, and Princeton University.

“Our mission for Pride on the Plaza is to create a welcoming, safe, and fun gathering space for multi-generational LGBTQIA+ individuals, our families (given/chosen), and allies to celebrate and commemorate the LGBTQIA+ community and its Pride, to connect, and to share resources,” PPL Adult Programming Manager Janie Hermann wrote in an email. She described attendees “coming together to party, eat, dance, play, and meet new people in a joyful space where all belong.”

She went on, “This event will truly be a celebratory way to show our strong support for the LGBTQ community as well as a chance to boogie down with pride for Pride!”

On Saturday morning, June 14, the Pride Parade will assemble at the Municipal Building and prepare to start its “march in strength and solidarity,” as Wasserman states, at 11 a.m. “The route travels through the historic Witherspoon Jackson neighborhood to represent the intersectionality of our mission and our respect for the families and community members very often unrecognized in Princeton at such events,” she added.

Wasserman and Seda-Schreiber, in a May 23 phone conversation, discussed the importance of Pride Month and the Pride Parade at a time when “our queer community is under attack and our LGBTQIA+ youth are more at risk than ever before.”

“It is the best of us in the worst of times,” Seda-Schreiber said. “One of the things the queer community does best, and certainly our organization thrives on, is the gathering and the strength of our beloved community, and that’s what the Pride Parade is, a gathering of people who are brave and strong and completely authentic in themselves, getting together to celebrate at a time when we are not necessarily celebrated.”

He went on to urge local businesses, organizations, and community members to step up and lend support to the Pride Month events. “Now is the time to show who you really are, how you love in community, and how you understand that we all deserve the same respect, the same recognition, and the same love.”

Instead of a celebrity grand marshal leading the parade as in past years, said Seda-Schreiber, “the grand marshal of this year’s Pride is you, and we mean our community, each and every person who shows up. That’s the person who is going to lead the parade, inspire us, and encourage us to move forward together, each and every one of us.”

Wasserman pointed out that the BRCSJ had seen a significant increase recently in people seeking out their queer safe space at the Stockton Street headquarters, with expanded hours since the fall election. “We are now open seven days a week because there is such a need in the community for people to have a space where they can go and feel safe,” she said.

She cited the strong support BRCSJ has received from local and state officials: Mayor Mark Freda, State Senator Andrew Zwicker, County Executive Dan Benson, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, Senator Andy Kim, and more.

“We are so thrilled that this town is so accepting, so welcoming,” said Seda-Schreiber. “Everybody from our police to the mayor to all council members, and the businesses. They’ve been supportive, encouraging and respectful, and they understand the impact of their support at this time and how this is so very pivotal at this moment.”

Seda-Schreiber and Wasserman urge those who would like to support “Princeton Pride ’25 — Pride Saves Lives” to visit rustincenter.org.

“Rainbows Sponsors” can purchase handmade signs displaying the BRCSJ Rainbow.

Other Pride month events in Princeton include the screening of Pride Shorts at the Garden Theatre from the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) on Saturday, June 7 at 10 a.m. as part of the theatre’s family matinee series.

“This is a chance for the Garden’s community of kids and families to celebrate diversity and practice empathy through the movies,” states a Garden Theatre press release. These stories of queer people from around the world have been “thoughtfully curated for ages 10 and up,” according to the website.

“Schoolyard matchmakers, a Belgian teen, a group of indigenous Hawaiian mahu, and more highlight the power that comes from embracing who you are,” according to the NYICFF’s website. Visit princetongardentheatre.org for more information and ticket reservations.

“Every Pride allows folks across the rainbow spectrum to see the potential and promise of how they can live their lives fully, who they can love openly and simply and beautifully, who they can be, who they are — Angelic troublemakers assemble,” Wasserman urged.