NYC Pride today announced its 2016 Grand Marshals for the 47th NYC Pride March on Sunday June 26:
Jazz Jennings is the 15-year-old honorary co-founder of the Transkids Purple Rainbow Foundation and the youngest Grand Marshal in NYC Pride history. Since her first appearance with her family at age 6 on 20/20, Jazz has become one of the nation’s best known voices on the experiences of trans young people. Jazz currently stars in the TLC docu-series I Am Jazz, returning on June 8. Her memoir, Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen, will be published by Random House Children’s Books and hits bookstores on June 7.
Subhi Nahas is a Syrian refugee who co-founded the first LGBT magazine in Syria, Mawaleh. In 2015, Subhi addressed the U.N. Security Council on the plight of LGBT people under persecution in his home country. He continues to advocate for LGBT refugees around the world and is currently working with a group of LGBT refugees in Turkey, called “Tea and Talk.”
RELATED: Gay Syrian Refugee Helps Other LGBT Refugees Find Asylum – WATCH
Cecilia Chung is an internationally recognized leader who has been advocating for HIV/AIDS awareness and care, LGBT equality, and social justice, for more than 30 years. As a founding producer of the San Francisco Trans March, Cecilia helped organize one of the world’s first and largest annual transgender events, which has since been replicated in cities across the U.S. Chung is a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and is a Senior Strategist for the Transgender Law Center.
NYC Pride’s theme is Equality Needs You.
Said organizers about the 2016 theme:
“We’re getting closer, but we aren’t there yet. Just ask the bisexual homeless youth on the Christopher Street Pier, the trans worker trying to achieve the American dream, or the gay refugee escaping certain death in his war torn homeland. The Supreme Court’s affirmation of marriage equality marked progress in the national and worldwide LGBT movement, but it was not a finish line. Equality needs you now more than ever. In 2016, we are making sure that some of the world’s largest and most visible LGBT events are helping to amplify our continued fight. EQUALITY NEEDS YOU, and you can answer the call. Join us for NYC Pride 2016.”
In February NYC Pride also announced the DJ line-up for the annual Dance on the Pier. Check it out HERE.
