Until the early 1990s, most New Yorkers associated the city’s LGBTQ population with the Manhattan neighborhood Greenwich Village. The Queens Pride Parade, inaugurated in Jackson Heights in 1993 by activists Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez, changed this, revealing a large LGBTQ community in the city’s most diverse borough. To mark the 25th Anniversary of the Parade, The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens provides snapshots of Queens LGBTQ history in recent decades, highlighting the contributions of several prominent activists from the borough, including Queensborough Community College IT Senior Associate Larry Nelson, a member of the Queens Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). The parade, a reflection of the borough’s ethnic and racial diversity, remains an opportunity to come out and celebrate amid cheering neighbors, festive music, and colorful floats.
