LGBTQ activists make history forming the first Palestine solidarity contingent in the Queens Pride Parade (6.7.26)
By Pauline Park
One could not tell from media coverage of the 2026 Queens Pride Parade — even in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) media — but the real news was that this was the first Queens Pride Parade to include an officially recognized Palestine solidarity contingent.
Dashiell Allen’s report on the Queens Pride Parade for Gay City News (Dashiell Allen, “Queens Pride takes over Jackson Heights with ‘unstoppable Pride’,” Gay City News, 7 June 2026) did not mention the participation of the first official Palestine solidarity contingent in the history of the parade but did surprisingly include these two paragraphs:
As [police commissioner Jessica] Tisch and the weapons-bearing officers marched, a group of protesters, holding signs stood by the side reading “No Pride in Genocide,” “Zionism = Terrorism,” and “Silence = Death.”
“I love Queens Pride; it’s one of the most diverse, oldest prides, very inspiring space, very community-oriented,” Ray, 32, one of the protestors, told Gay City News. “And as a person who supports Palestine, it’s very important for me to be here, because there are queer people in Gaza who are being bombed who don’t get to benefit from this, and people often don’t think about this.”
Surprising because Gay City News was acquired by the Zionist mother and son Victoria Schneps and Josh Schneps whose Schneps Media strongly supported Apartheid Israel’s Gaza genocide from its inception after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023; Schneps & Schneps were controversially cozy with Zionist Eric Adams and he even credited them with helping him win election as mayor in 2021 (see the Schneps Media entry in Wikipedia).
The story of the first Palestine solidarity contingent in the Queens Pride Parade is inextricably linked with the history of the parade itself as I have recounted before (Pauline Park, “New Queens Pride’s collaboration with the Zionist machine in support of Apartheid Israel’s Gaza genocide,” 15 June 2024).
(photo by Melissa Cox)
Contrary to the impression that Daniel F. Dromm has created, he did not in fact singlehandedly found the Queens Pride Committee; he was one among several Queens activists but he eliminated anyone on the Pride Committee he thought might be in the least bit independent of him and he successfully used the Queens Pride Parade and Winter Pride (the annual dinner dance fundraiser) as a platform for his political career; retiring from the New York City Council after three terms, Danny Dromm turned the Queens Pride Parade over to David Kilmnick, the president/CEO of the LGBT Network of Long Island.
The Tibetan Equality Project had decided to boycott the parade in response to the new Zionist regime running the event but the other QAPI groups felt the need to make a statement by fielding a contingent complete with banners, placards and flags. The 2025 Queens Pride Parade did not include a Palestine contingent but in 2024, the queer Asian and Pacific Islander (API) groups came together to form a de facto unofficial Palestine solidarity contingent in response to the takeover of the event by ‘New Queens Pride’ — led by the Zionist David Kilmnick (Pauline Park, “New Queens Pride’s collaboration with the Zionist machine in support of Apartheid Israel’s Gaza genocide,” 15 June 2024).
No one took the lead to organize a Palestine contingent in the 2025 Queens Pride Parade and in May 2026, a friend and fellow Queens activist contacted me to ask if I knew if anyone was organizing something for the 2026 parade; together, we decided to organize the first official Palestine solidarity contingent; we had wondered if the Zionist who controlled the parade would reject the registration of an explicitly Palestine-specific group marching in the parade; perhaps the power(s) that be considered rejecting the registration but realized that doing so would draw attention to the contingent and generate unwanted media attention.
Just as with the queer API groups marching as an unofficial de facto Palestine contingent met with only a few negative comments (I noted two, both from white men on the sidelines), the official Palestine contingent met with just two negative responses that I was aware of; one (white) man on the sidelines standing with a woman (I don’t know if the were a heteronormative couple but they appeared to be one), shook his head vigorously as we passed by, though I couldn’t be certain it was in response to our signifying banners, placards and signs; and one of my comrades told me of another man on the sidelines who had mad negative comment within earshot of her.
Some in the crowd observed our contingent with bewilderment or indifference, but many on the sidelines cheered us on, some with enormous enthusiasm. The most meaningful moment for me was when Candy Samples — the mistress of ceremonies who this year also happened to be one of the grand marshals — announced our continent as we passed by the reviewing stand; she read the full description of the group that we provided the parade; I then waved to her and she waved back and I mouthed ‘congratulations’ to her on her designation as grand marshal and he touched her heart with her hand to signal her appreciation.
A few minutes later, it was all over and we disbanded, eight of us going to a nearby restaurant in Little India for lunch; but it was not lost on any of us that we had made history.
Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), which she co-founded in 1998. Park led the campaign for passage of the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and served on the working group that helped to draft guidelines — adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in December 2004 — for implementation of the new statute. In March 2011, Park co-founded New York City Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC QAIA) and in January 2012, she participated in the first US LGBTQ delegation to Palestine, a seven-day tour of the West Bank and Israel that included meetings with LGBT- and non-LGBT Palestinians and Israelis. Park did her B.A. in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her M.Sc. in European studies at the London School of Economics and her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.