Pride in 2000's

InterPride's membership voted to establish the "WorldPride" title and awarded it to the city of Rome, Italy, during July 1 to July 9, 2000. The event was put on by the Italian gay rights group Mario Mieli along with InterPride.

Picture by Giovanni Dall'Orto.

“Gay rights issues were far more prominent in the mainstream dialogue of the ‘00 campaign in comparison to the 1992 and 1996 campaigns…We enacted the executive order banning discrimination in the federal workplace. We made numerous appointments of openly gay and lesbian individuals for the first time in history. We found for the Employment Non-Discrimation Act…We moved the center of gravity on those issues…” -Al Gore in “Making Gay History” by Eric Marcus

We’ve arrived in our series at the turn of the century. In this decade, to understand what the Pride Marches were like is to understand what is going on in the broader world. The new millennium started off with the first WorldPride event in Rome during July 2000. The next WorldPride event in Jerusalem would see delegations from over 51 cities across the globe. While trans-specific marches began in the ‘90s, there would be a marked increase during the ‘00s, responding to the rise in violence towards people of the trans community. The first major Equality March would begin in Poland, and more countries would see pride marches begin during this decade. While these global events were taking place, big changes were beginning in the United States as well.

The first federally designated Pride Month happened during this decade. While President Clinton instituted the first Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, it was President Obama who instituted a more inclusive Pride Month celebration in 2009. Other major LGBTQ+ changes began to happen in Washington. The Millennium March on Washington kicked off the decade with tens of thousands marching to declare awareness and visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. The end of the decade saw the National Equality March for that same visibility. The slow journey towards LBGTQ+ decriminalization also gained momentum this decade. Sodomy laws were overturned by the United States Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas. The Supreme Court also decriminalized same-sex marriage, beginning the slow, state-by-state wave of marriage equality. In this wave of LGBTQ+ acceptance where change happened slowly, one can also see this happening after the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. His death inspired changes to laws, first federally, then state-by-state, to include members of the LGBTQ+ community in their hate crime bills. As Matthew’s mother, Judy Shepard, would say in an article for the Human Rights Campaign Equality Magazine: "Matthew’s legacy is not about hate. Matthew’s legacy is about understanding, compassion, acceptance and love." All of this was highly visible in the pride marches, on banners and signs, in chants, and everywhere in between. The next decade would see many changes for the community, all set on the foundation that this decade and the previous decades created.