WorldPride caps off its first D.C. celebration with a weekend parade

WorldPride 2025 wraps up in Washington, D.C., this weekend with festivities including a parade that will kick off Saturday in one of the city’s historic gay neighborhoods and conclude in front of the U.S. Capitol.

This is the first time that D.C. has hosted the international LGBTQ+ festival since WorldPride’s inaugural event in Rome in 2000.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of Pride events in D.C. — one of the largest Pride celebrations across the country that typically gathers hundreds of thousands of attendees over several days of celebration.

Despite the usual magnitude of Pride festivities in the nation’s capital, Pride organizers say the current political environment has dampened the excitement surrounding the celebration of life and self expression.

Speaking to NPR this week, several members of the queer community expressed reservations about attending Pride events in D.C., given the number of executive orders signed by President Trump that limit the rights of trans people.

And a number of high-profile corporate sponsors that have supported the event in the past have declined to do so this year in the wake of Trump’s executive order targeting “illegal DEI” initiatives in the federal government.

Still, law enforcement officials are preparing the city for a large celebration.

That includes the controversial decision by the National Park Service this week to close Dupont Circle Park — considered by many as one of the city’s queer landmarks — during WorldPride’s finale weekend.

The move sparked immediate backlash, including from local elected officials.

Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Joe Bishop-Henchman wrote on X earlier this week that the closing would be “like NYC cordoning off Stonewall or SF blocking off the Castro,” a reference to two other famous gay neighborhoods in New York City and San Francisco.