‘Pride in the CLE’ brings out queer workers

The LGBTQIA2S+ community of Cleveland has been participating in Pride events for nearly half a century, but each year the march and festival still grows and now draws tens of thousands of people. Among the popular chants during the June 6 march was, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, transphobia has got to go!”

The biggest number of contingents were those of workers marching under the banner of their employers or of their religious congregations. There was only one sizable union contingent, that of the Cleveland Teachers Union, with a few other small union groupings. Nevertheless the march showed the eagerness of working-class people to either come out proudly as LGBTQIA2S+ or express solidarity with their queer coworkers.

Although few in number, groups that marched with an overtly progressive message — antiwar, antiracist, pro-migrant, pro-socialist or opposed to the city’s use of surveillance cameras through contracts with Flock — received the loudest applause.

Last to march was a young, multinational group of hundreds of “unaffiliated” activists.