The National Parks Service and the United States Park Police closed on Thursday night the Dupont Circle Park, widely known as Washington’s heart, the LGBTQ neighborhood, before the final weekend of Worldpride, a celebration of the international pride held in the capital of the nation this year.
This year’s parade was not scheduled to pass through Dupont Circle, but the park has traditionally organized unofficial celebrations after pride events. It was the home of some of the first DC pride celebrations in the 1970s, as well as the important protests during LGBTQ rights and civil rights movements.
The park service said in a letter on Wednesday that the park would be closed from 6 pm on Thursday to 6 pm on Sunday. The letter said that the United States Park Police had determined that the closure is necessary to “ensure the park, deter potential violence, reduce the risk of destructive acts and reduce the need for broad presences of application of the law.”
Capital Pride Alliance, who organizes DC Pride and is organizing this year’s Worldpride celebration, said Friday that he is “frustrated and disappointed” in the decision of the parks service to close Dupont Circle during Worldpride.
“This beloved milestone is essential for the community that Worldpride intends to celebrate and honor,” said Capital Pride Alliance in a statement. “It is much more than a park, during generations it has been a meeting place for the LGBTQ+ DC community, organizing assemblies of the first amendment and commemorative services for those we lost with the AIDS epidemic and after tragic events such as the shooting in the click nightclub.”
The organization added that the “sudden movement” was “carried out during the night without consulting with the Pride Capital Alliance or other local officials”, and that Worldpride activities were not planned in Dupont Circle and, therefore, official events would not be affected.
The closure of the park occurs after weeks long between the DC Police and federal officials. DC Police Chief, Pamela Smith, requested a complete closure of the park in April, and on Tuesday morning, the National Parks Service issued a statement that the park would be closed during the final weekend of the Worldpride festivities due to the application of the Smith Police and the United States Park, NBC Washington reported.
That same day, Smith terminated the application after meeting with community members to talk about the importance of the park for the celebration of pride, according to NBC Washington, and Smith told two members of the Council of the City of DC that the park would remain open during the weekend.
Then, in a letter on Wednesday, Major Frank Hilsher, from the United States Park Police, requested that the fencing “anti-escala”, which is designed to prevent people from climbing for it, are used to close the park.
The Hilsher letter, which was included with the Parque Service letter, detailed a series of incidents that occurred in the park after the formal pride events over the years, including vandalism in 2023 that resulted in $ 175,000 in damages to the historical source of the park.
He added that open source intelligence reports have “identified local DJ advertising and selling tickets for a meeting/party not allowed in Dupont Circle after world pride events.” The event, said Hilsher, is not sanctioned by Worldpride and has not requested a separate permit that allows the parks service to administer the event.
“This announcement of social networks states that this is the same DJ and ‘party’ as the last years previous, which has resulted in the unsafe conditions and damages counted above,” said Hilsher in the letter.
The organizers of Worldpride estimated that up to 3 million people could attend, although they also issued a warning to possible transgender assistants from outside the United States to have their own risk and consider the travel notices of some European countries.
In just the first weeks of his second administration, President Donald Trump issued several executive orders aimed at trans people, including the statement that there are only two immutable sexes; Prohibit trans people get ready and serve in the army; Prohibit trans and women to compete in women’s sports teams in K-12 schools financed by the Federal Government; and prohibit federal financing to go to hospitals that provide attention related to the transition to minors.
As a result of Trump’s executive order that defines sex, federal officials have also scheduled the websites of the agency for any mention of transgender or intersex people. References to transgender and queer people were removed from the website for the National Stonewall monument that commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising site, widely considered a turning point in the modern movement of homosexual rights. A website dedicated to Frank Kameny, a pioneer of LGBTQ rights, was also erased from the National Parques Service website this year. The National Parques Service website for Dupont Circle Park now also says that the park “has served as an anchor of a neighborhood of diplomats, government officials, war commemorations and the LGB community for more than 200 years”, eliminating transgender and queer of the LGBTQ acronym.
Earlier this week, the Navy confirmed to NBC News that it would change the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, an Aceiter for resupplying the fleet that bears the name of the LGBTQ rights activist, veteran of the Navy and first openly gay chosen for a public office in California.
