It’s Pride Month, which means cities across the country will be having parades and other festivities, albeit scaled-down versions. In New York and several other cities, parade organizers have said uniformed police officers may not march as a group. Organizers say the move acknowledges that a Pride march isn’t just a celebration and that it began as a statement about police violence against L.G.B.T.Q. people at the Stonewall Inn.

This week, Jane Coaston speaks to André Thomas, a co-chair of NYC Pride, which organizes the parade, and Brian Downey, a New York Police Department detective and the president of the Gay Officers Action League.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The documentary “We Were Here” about the H.I.V./AIDS crisis in San Francisco
• The podcast “Making Gay History”
• The New York Daily News headline after the Stonewall uprising
• The New York Times video “Pride March in New York Protests Police Brutality” showing the Queer Liberation March that gathered in Washington Square Park in 2020