Jay W. Walker is a co-founder of the Reclaim Pride Coalition, which organizes the Queer Liberation March for Trans and BIPOC Freedom, Reproductive Justice, and Bodily Autonomy. His career in activism began in the 1990s as part of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), an HIV/AIDs service organization. He had moved to New York City in 1985, and attended his first Pride March in 1988.
In 2017, Walker and hundreds of other activists formed a “resistance contingent” and marched together as the first group in the Heritage of Pride March.
From the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s page:
The complex proliferation of Parades as the model for Pride Celebrations internationally is deeply disturbing to many people in the LGBTQIA2S+ communities. In the city of New York, home to the Stonewall Inn, a group of Queer activists decided the Parade in NYC had gone too far — too far from the spirt of the Stonewall Rebellion, and miles away from achieving societal equity for queer and trans people.
So was born the Reclaim Pride Coalition.
Community organizers, activists, and queers of conscience banded together after years of seeing the annual NYC Pride March transformed into a 7, then 9, then 12 hour circus. Overflowing with corporate floats and at the service of corporate money, the Pride Parade had become a new symbol of gay for pay. The imposition of barricades along the parade route separated the participants from its audience, turning the Pride March into an entertainment venue instead of a true expression of our cultural legacy. The presence of a dozen police officers at every intersection of the Parade marked the collusion of the non-profit board and the very instance of state sponsored oppression.
The Reclaim Pride Coalition stands by the tag, “No corps, no cops, no bs!”