The Queer Liberation march aimed for a protest vibe, saying the main Pride march was too heavily policed by the same department that raided Stonewall a half century earlier.

In 2019, there were two marches in Manhattan after some in the community concluded that the annual parade had become too commercialised. Pride NYC’s announcement Saturday follows a division among organisers in recent years in planning for celebrations of LGBTQ+ pride in New York City. Pride season occurs this year amid activism inspired by the response to racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death last year at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The uprising is largely credited with fuelling the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Those marches came a year after the 1969 uprising outside Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in response to a police raid. The disruptions frustrated activists, who had hoped to collectively mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride parades and marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in 1970.