Chicago Pride Parade organizers announce date for 2025 parade, themed "United in Pride"
Organizers with Chicago Pride have unveiled the dates and theme for the 2025 edition of the popular LGBTQ+ community celebration. This year's parade theme will be "United in Pride."
Citing "the powerful spirit of unity, resilience, and love that defines the LGBTQ+ community and its allies," organizers with PRIDEChicago confirmed this year's Chicago Pride Parade will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, June 29.
The theme is meant to be taken as a call to action, and "an opportunity to come together, embrace diversity, and continue the fight for equality," according to organizers.
"For over 50 years, the Chicago Pride Parade has remained a powerful platform for visibility, advocacy, and celebration," parade co-coordinator Tim Frye said. "In 2025, we celebrate not just how far we've come, but in the face of growing challenges, the strength we have when we stand together."
Frye has helped coordinate the parade for the better part of five decades alongside his late husband, Richard Pfeiffer. The tradition of pride parade kicked off in the wake of the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, launching as the Gay Liberation March in 1970 and ultimately growing into an annual summer standby. Organizers say Pride events draw up to 1 million people each June.
The 2025 parade will begin at the intersection of Sheridan and Broadway, with a route traveling about two miles, ending near Diversey and Cannon Drive, at the north end of Lincoln Park.
During last year's Pride Month celebrations, Gov. JB Pritzker signed two new bills for LGBTQ+ rights. One bill aimed to ensure diversity in nonprofit organizations, while the other was aimed at making it easier for Illinois residents to change the legal gender on their birth certificates if they were born in other states.
