The Latest on parades and marches throughout the country celebrating Pride (all times local):
12:15 p.m.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has created a task force to study the rights of transgender students.
The Democrat signed an executive order Sunday, the day of Pride parades nationwide including in Chicago. The order also directs the State Board of Education on related issues, including publishing resources on the legal rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
The task force will be made up of 25 people appointed by Pritzker. They’ll study what schools are doing to promote LGBTQ rights to make sure students have “welcoming” and “inclusive” environments. Their report is due in January 2020.
Advocacy group Equality Illinois calls it a positive step, but says stronger statewide protections are needed.
Chicago’s Pride Parade starts at noon. Lori Lightfoot, the city’s first openly gay mayor, is one of several grand marshals.
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10:45 a.m.
Protesters are marching outside the historic Stonewall Inn to mark the 50th anniversary of the police raid that sparked the modern day gay rights movement.
The Queer Liberation March started Sunday morning at the bar where patrons resisted a police raid in 1969. The march is planned to coincide with the larger Pride parade set to begin Sunday afternoon.
The organizers of the queer march say the larger Pride event is too commercialized and heavily policed.
Twenty-four-year-old Jake Seller, an Indiana native now living in Brooklyn, is one of the march’s volunteers and says it “will always remain a protest, not an advertisement.”
Other attendees wanted to celebrate how far the LGBTQ community has come.
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3:10 a.m.
New York is throwing a massive LGBTQ Pride march as other cities including San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle also host parades commemorating the 50th anniversary of the clash between police and gay bar patrons that sparked the modern gay rights movement.
New York’s Pride march kicks off at noon Sunday with 677 contingents including community groups, major corporations and cast members from FX’s “Pose.” Organizers say they expect 150,000 people to march as hundreds of thousands more line the streets.
A smaller Queer Liberation March is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. at the Stonewall Inn, proceeding to Central Park for a rally. The organizers of the queer march say the larger Pride event is too commercialized and heavily policed.
