Danielle Shellgren leads chants during the Pittsburgh Dyke March on Saturday, June 7, 2025, in Bloomfield. (Photo by Caleb Kaufman/PublicSouce)
The crowd of marchers called out President Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers and cuts to gender-affirming care as they voiced support for Pittsburgh’s LGTBQ community.
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A marching band, a variety of chants and dozens of flags enlivened Liberty Avenue on Saturday in Bloomfield. But this was no ordinary parade. A crowd of around 250 people gathered for the 15th year of the Pittsburgh Dyke March. This year the event, which celebrates lesbians and queer people at-large, focused on supporting transgender Americans amid ongoing rollbacks of trans rights, such as the recent ban of transgender soldiers in the U.S. military.
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Danielle Shellgren, a march organizer, said “we really wanted to make our mission about the trans community because so many of their rights are under attack, even here in Pittsburgh with UPMC,” referring to the hospital’s decision to curb gender affirming healthcare to people under 19, following an executive order by the Trump administration.
The group also condemned other Trump policies such as raids on communities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and proposed cuts to Medicare. The marchers also protested the Israeli invasion and blockade of Gaza. “None of us are free ‘til all of us are free,” Shellgren said of the group’s Palestinian activism.
Chants of “free free Palestine,” “no justice, no peace,” and simply “dyke, dyke, dyke” echoed from the crowd as they marched through the streets. The march led to Bloomfield Park, where vendors set up to serve food, table community information and ink temporary tattoos.
Organizers of the march, who later said that as many as 2,000 people participated in the event, spoke about the importance of staying politically active in the current climate. Then the DJ started playing music and the party began.
Editor’s note (6/10): This story was amended to include estimates of participation submitted by organizers after initial publication.
Caleb Kaufman is a photojournalist at PublicSource and can be reached at caleb@publicsource.org and on instagram at @caleb_kaufman_photography
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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