Pennsylvania’s largest Pride flag comes to Philly ahead of weekend’s march and festival
The flag is 200 feet long, about the length of some city blocks or two-thirds of a football field.
Is Philly a city of size queens?
Maybe. At least according to the city’s newest Pride flag.
To kick off Philly Pride Month, LGBTQ-serving organization Galaei partnered with the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation to unveil the largest Pride flag in Pennsylvania at Independence Mall Friday.
It’s a 200-foot-long rainbow. That’s the length of some city blocks or about two-thirds of a football field, and double the size of New York City’s largest Pride flag, which taps out at 100 feet.
The flag is a “visual representation of our community,” said Tyrell Brown, executive director of Galaei, which became the new official host of the Philadelphia Pride March and Festival this year. “It’s big, it’s vibrant.”
The flag and festival come at a time when the LGBTQ+ community is weathering an onslaught of attacks on their ability to talk about their relationships, receive health care, perform drag in public, or teach an understanding of the sexuality spectrum.
And Philly isn’t immune to this sort of rhetoric, either: The conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ parent group Moms For Liberty is hosting a summit at a Center City Marriott later this month after pushing for book bans in the suburbs.
» READ MORE: Trans and queer-led groups are protesting the Marriott for hosting Moms for Liberty conference this summer
Brown said they “felt the need to show Philadelphia as a home and safe haven” for queer folks in and outside of city limits.
The march and festival will be held on Sunday, kicking off at 10:30 a.m. from Sixth and Walnut Streets, accompanied by the Bearded Ladies Cabaret and a procession of the massive flag. From there the festival will commence in the Gayborhood, and will include Pride’s first ever Latinx music and dance stage, an alleyway fit for voguing, and a suite of family-friendly programming from organizations such as William Way.
» READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the 2023 Philly Pride march and festival
The march and celebration itself has had a turbulent few years: The event took a pause in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19, and a racial reckoning forced Pride’s former organizers to disband. After a successful relaunch last year, Galaei’s partner backed out.
“We anticipate things like [counterprotests] happening, of course, but that’s not our focus,” said Brown. “Our focus is on serving the community.”
Brown said the flag and partnership with the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation came together in just under two weeks. Interim president and CEO Jennifer Nagel was excited at the prospect of setting a statewide record.
“Where else are we going to make history than on Independence Mall?” she asked at a news conference.
Brown said one of Galaei’s team members connected them with a flag artisan from Gettysburg, who was able (and proud) to sew something that large.
“We were shocked when we saw it,” Brown said. “Two-hundred feet sounded large, but this is larger than we ever expected.”
Aryanna Gomez-Mares, 19, a queer organizer who is volunteering at the Pride march and festival this weekend, was there to lay out the flag with about a dozen others.
“It shows resilience,” they said. “I like that it’s as big as possible.”