This past Sunday, New York City’s 57th annual Pride March drew roughly 750,000 participants and 2 million onlookers craning out windows and filling sidewalks. Governor Kathy Hochul made an appearance, as did a jacketless Mayor Mamdani waving a mini trans flag. As he has for the past 20 years, photographer Ryan McGinley brought his camera to the Drag March, Dyke March, the March, and Queer Liberation March. “In the beginning I would shoot a roll or two of film casually for myself,” says McGinley. But now, he says, it’s become important to share the pictures far and wide. The Trump administration has spent the year methodically targeting the queer community, and New York hasn’t been spared — NYU Langone shut down its youth-transgender-care program after federal pressure in February. (On Friday, the mayor responded with a $15 million investment in trans health care.)
Across every march, McGinley’s photos are intimate and jubilant. He often uses a long lens to capture people’s candid moments from afar and tends to find diverse angles, climbing up scaffolding or standing on garbage cans. “I’m looking to represent everybody,” says McGinley, “and make sure everybody is seen.”
Bowen Yang, a grand marshal for the March.
