Mexico City’s celebrations are among the largest in the world and also the liveliest and most fun

The Stonewall Riots in New York, triggered by one police raid too many to extort and harass the customers of that gay bar, took place on June 28, 1969, a date that by now is marked in most large cities worldwide with parades and festivals. Gay Pride parades attract millions of people from New York to Sao Paulo, and Auckland to Tokyo. Hell, if gay priests and nuns could be persuaded to step out of the closet for the occasion, even the Vatican would have a sizable Gay Pride shindig of its own.

Stew and I have attended five or six Pride parades in Mexico City, the largest and most raucous in 2022, after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID pandemic. We could feel the pent-up energy as hundreds of thousands from all over Mexico took to the Paseo de la Reforma, a majestic, eight-lane boulevard that cuts through the heart of city. Like most marches of celebration or protest, the Pride parade officially started at the Angel, a iconic monument in the middle of a traffic roundabout, consisting of a Corinthian column about 120 feet high crowned with a glistening bronze statue of the Angel of Independence.

Realistically, though, anything related to Mexico’s Pride parade, including attendance figures and starting times, has to be calculated grosso modo or más o menos. Unlike parades in the U.S. in which marchers neatly gather behind banners announcing certain organizations or political causes, in Mexico thousands of people begin arriving at around nine o’clock long before the official starting time of noon. From there the crowds rapidly grow in numbers and noise, like a hurricane of joyous people gathering strength.

By one o’clock we noticed from our hotel window that the official parade had indeed begun, with many floats that featured recorded music blasting, and scantily clad dancers, moving slowly headed toward the Zócalo, the giant plaza at the heart of the city. But simultaneously, just as many people meandered on the other four lanes of Reforma going in the opposite direction.

At one point near the Angel, someone placed a boombox on the pavement and a mob dance of a couple of hundred people erupted, jumping and waving their arms in something that vaguely resembled line dancing. No matter. The mood was one of spontaneous celebration.

Compared with some American cities, such as Chicago, which deployed extra police forces during the Pride celebrations this year, in Mexico City visible police presence was minimal except at the end when phalanxes of traffic cops on motorcycles, sirens blaring, shooed people back onto the sidewalks to clear the streets. Even potentially combustible situations such as a knot of pro-Palestinian protestors at the foot of the Angel, went on peacefully.

As I mingled with the crowds, I saw mostly partying individuals or small groups who must have invested hours and days—and buckets of sequins, glitter and tulle—to create outrageous and nonsensical getups.

But as I paused for a second, I could also imagine the people behind those costumes who lead otherwise closeted or anonymous lives—bank tellers, teachers or government bureaucrats—breaking out for the streets in this one weekend of freedom a year, when they could dress or carry on however they felt like. For others that meant the chance to quietly hold the hand of a lover or sneak a kiss without fear of mockery or hassle.

Pride also has become a major political and commercial event for Mexico City that packs hotels, suddenly festooned with rainbow-everything, from flags to the heart-shaped donuts with rainbow-colored frosting at the breakfast buffet of the Sheraton where we stayed (see photo at the top of post). Swarms of street vendors also supplemented their meager existences by hawking Pride merchandise from discreet rainbow bracelets to giant inflatable penises and condoms. And the city government seemed only too happy to join the festivities by bathing the Angel of Freedom with a rainbow of lights.

Following are some pictures of the event and its participants:

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