Members of the mayor's Advisory Council on LGBTQ+ Issues are calling for new restrictions on the Chicago Pride Parade to be removed, claiming community groups weren't consulted before the city made the decision to downsize this year's celebration.
Fourteen of 20 members of the LGBTQ+ advisory council, which held its first meeting in February after being created by Mayor Brandon Johnson's office, released an open letter Tuesday calling for the new 125-entry cap on the parade to be lifted.
"The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have made great strides to advance the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ people," the letter states. "We urge the city of Chicago to work towards having the largest, most visible and most powerful Pride Parade in the country, especially at a time when LGBTQ+ communities, and in particular trans youth, are facing unprecedented and life-threatening attacks."
The letter also asks for the city to hold community conversations engaging the affected communities when making changes to any parade held in Chicago, including the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Bud Billiken Parade and more. It was co-signed by various LGBTQ+ groups and businesses, including the parade's organizers, Equality Illinois, Howard Brown Health, Sidetrack, Brave Space Alliance, Pride Action Tank, The Association of Latinos/as/xs Motivating Action, E3 Radio, and Windy City Times.
Jin-Soo Huh, chair of the LGBTQ+ advisory council, said members of the board had no clue about the city's plan to downsize the parade until news came out that the city was planning to enforce an ordinance requiring parades to finish within 2 hours and 15 minutes—something that hasn't been enforced in previous years.
"We were not at the table for this decision," Huh said. "And it shouldn't just be the LGBTQ+ Advisory Council. How do we make sure that other LGBTQ+ organizations are in on this too? And for other parades, are they consulting their community members as well?"
One change to the parade supported by the groups that signed onto the letter is the parade's start time being shifted one hour earlier to 11 a.m. instead of noon. Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th) previously told Windy City Times that change was made to better align the event with the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) shift changes.
"We understand that the city is asking for some adjustments to the schedule to accommodate shift changes at the Chicago Police Department," the letter states. "We also understand that without much notice, CPD is now looking to enforce an ordinance that has never been enforced in this context. We urge community conversations around equitable enforcement of this previously unenforced rule and any other adjustments the city wants to make to the parade."
The mayor's office did not immediately return a request for comment.
City officials have given a number of reasons for the changes being made to this year's parade, including potential conflicts with other large events. This year's Pride Parade happens the week of Fourth of July and the weekend before NASCAR's Chicago Street Race.
Lawson, one of the city's nine openly LGBTQ+-identifying alderpeople, said the decision came down to limited police staffing and other resources. The parade is staffed each year by hundreds of officers, using thousands of dollars of overtime.
The changes to the parade are being made to ensure smooth transitions between shift changes and appropriate staffing levels to handle three shifts: the parade itself, the immediate hours after the celebration and the late-night hours that day, Lawson said.
"There is a need to keep the community safe all day," Lawson said. "The parade has its own atmosphere and footprint, and then there's the time immediately after the parade and different things happening late at night."
In recent years, crowds of teenagers have taken over streets in the late-night hours after the parade to party—something that was reported on by the Sun-Times in 2023. In 2022, three people were stabbed and another three were shot in Lake view during the late-night hours after the parade, according to Block Club Chicago.
"We're likely going to use more police later than we do for the event itself," Lawson said. "We've got to manage that throughout the whole day, not just the parade."
Other crowd-management strategies being explored by the city include closing off North Halsted for a street festival in the immediate hours after the parade.
Kevin Barbeau, executive director of the Northalsted Business Alliance, which organizes the neighborhood's annual Pride Festival the weekend before the parade, previously said leaders were "still in discussion-mode as to how/if it would occur."
Going forward, the city needs to better include LGBTQ+ groups in the decision-making process regarding changes to the Pride Parade, Huh said.
"We ask the mayor and the city of Chicago to lean into their values of equity and transparency and work with the parade organizers, the advisory council and the supporting organizations to restore the Pride Parade and support the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago and beyond," the letter states.