Scenes from the 2023 Brooklyn Pride Parade in Park Slope

'Brooklyn Pride is the time when you see all your ex-girlfriends and all your future ex-girlfriends'

The sun is setting over Fifth Avenue in Park Slope early Saturday evening. Cheerleaders are practicing their flips, kids in rainbow clothes are out in full force and local politicians are stumping as just about everyone is singing along with Tina Turner’s hits pumping out of loud speakers. Men in butterfly wings flutter down the block while signs stating “Love is Love” are being distributed through the gathering crowd.

Up ahead the Sirens Motorcycle Club, an all female motorcycle group clad in leather and ballet skirts, kick off Brooklyn Pride’s Twilight parade to the roar of dozens of motorcycle throttles.

Jen Baquial and the Sirens kick off the parade (Stephanie Keith)

“The Sirens women’s motorcycle club of New York City has been in existence since 1986 and we’ve been leading pride marches in the city since 1986,” says Jen Baquial, one of the group’s leaders. “This is tradition. It’s celebration, it’s a reflection and it’s a fight, but the most important thing about Brooklyn that we love is how community centered this is. Like, it’s the best pride and there’s the most girls out here.”

Yana Kuzmina of the Sirens (Stephanie Keith)

Cheryl Stewart, one of the original Sirens founders adds with a wink, “Brooklyn Pride is the time when you see all your ex-girlfriends and all your future ex-girlfriends.”

Among the parade’s grand marshals is Kylexus White, one of the leaders of transgender support non-profit The Brooklyn Ghost Project. Their group cruises past in a black Rolls Royce convertible with a large portrait of their founder, Mother Latravius, who died last year.

The Brooklyn Ghost Project rolling in a Rolls (Stephanie Keith)

“Being a grand marshal at this parade means everything. It means that we’re finally being recognized and we’re being acknowledged for all the hard work we do every day,” says White. “We are giving support to transgender people of color that are in need. We give out clothing, we help them look for shelter, we help with their transition, anything they need.”

The crowd is five and six rows deep along the parade route. Families have brought their children and many local schools are here in support, including The Packer Collegiate Institute, St. Ann’s School, The Berkeley Carroll School, Brooklyn Friends School, P.S. 10 and others with contingents marching in the parade.

The Cheer New York Squad (Stephanie Keith)

“We came to support LGBT community of Brooklyn because we support their rights,” says Anna Raskina, surrounded by a gaggle of rainbow skirt wearing children. “We come from Russian and in Russia there are no LGBT rights, LGBT people are prosecuted and discriminated against so we came here because that something that’s important to us to support.”