Polanski told the crowd: Go back to your communities, to the community centres, to your trade unions, to your friends, to your neighbours. We must organise in our communities. Local elections are coming in just a few weeks' time, he added. We will defeat hate. It's time to make hope normal again.
"It's an outrage," says Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. "But it's an outrage upon another outrage because we know that this administration seems very comfortable in attacking religious, ethnic, and other minorities, including the LGBTQ population."
National Student Pride, a non-profit organisation created in 2005, said its income had reduced by about two-thirds in the last two years, "largely due to widespread cuts to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) budgets" by sponsors. It said other sponsors had to be dropped after it introduced an "ethical sponsorship" policy last year, following some LGBTQ+ groups' protests against sponsors' links to Israel and the fossil fuel industry. In 2024, the event had 24 sponsors, this year there are only eight.