March 3, 2025 By Shane O’Brien
Thousands lined Skillman Avenue Sunday afternoon to celebrate the 26th annual St. Pat’s for All Parade in Sunnyside, with organizers stating that the 2025 parade took on increased significance following a slew of executive orders from President Donald Trump targeting DEI and the trans community.
The parade, which featured thousands of participants and a record number of over 110 participating groups, began with a series of speeches from organizers and elected officials at the intersection of 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue at noon before proceeding down Skillman at 1 p.m. and concluding at the intersection of 57th Street and Woodside Avenue.
Micky Murray, the first openly gay Lord Mayor of Belfast, was grand marshal for Sunday’s parade, while his fellow grand marshal Judy Collins, a celebrated American singer-songwriter, pulled out of the event due to illness. Helena Nolan, the Irish consul-general for New York, also took part in the event for the last time before transferring to Morocco later in the year.
The parade also featured a who’s who of local elected officials, including U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez, Assembly Members Claire Valdez, Catalina Cruz, Zohran Mamdani and Jessica González-Rojas and State Sens. Mike Gianiaris and Jessica Ramos, as well as Council Members Adrienne Adams, Julie Won, and Shekar Krishnan.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, introducing himself as “O’Donovan Richards” for the occasion, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams also spoke at the event.
Former Council Member Danny Dromm, a co-founder of St. Pat’s for All introduced as the “Queen of Queens” on Sunday, led the crowd in chants of “F*ck Trump” in a speech before the beginning of the parade.
Almost all speakers took an opportunity to assail the Trump Administration over attacks against the trans and immigrant communities across the US, with the majority of speakers calling on Queens to display a “united front” against the White House.
Trump has received significant criticism from the left since taking office six weeks ago after signing a number of executive orders targeting DEI and trans communities, including an order blocking funding to organizations offering care for transgender youth, an order stating that there are only two genders and orders ending diversity programs in schools, colleges and the federal government.
Richards told the crowd that civil rights in the US are under attack, stating that Queens’ diversity is one of its greatest strengths.
“We are the world’s borough, and we will not turn our backs on anyone in our community,” Richards said to cheers from the crowd. “Yes, we support DEI, and let me say, even when we talk about DEI, we definitely earned it because nobody gave us anything when we built this country.”
In an impassioned address, Adams referenced a line in the “Star Spangled Banner,” referring to the US as the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” The City Council Speaker said New Yorkers are free enough to love who they want and talk to who they want, while they are also “brave enough to let Donald Trump know that we’re not taking his crap.”
“Brave enough to let the world know that we are not the portrayal of what we see in Washington from a man with an orange face, brave enough to tell everybody that we are going to stand up in the face of adversity,” Adams told the crowd.
Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, described St. Pat’s for All as one of the most “exciting, enriching and fulfilling demonstrations” of Irish values, New York values and American values, adding that Sunday’s parade would send a “strong message.”
Mamdani pledged to celebrate and count each New Yorker as his neighbor and vowed to “not give even a single New Yorker up to the federal administration,” while Valdez stated that St. Pat’s for All demonstrated that “New York is for everyone.” Valdez also pledged that New York would be a “firewall” against the Trump Administration and pledged to fight in the halls of Albany and the streets of Sunnyside against White House policies.
“I’m proud to be in solidarity with everyone fighting for freedom, for the things that they deserve, the basic dignity and abundance that every single person deserves,” Valdez said. “The fascist wants to diminish our freedoms and our protections for our workers, our immigrant neighbors, our trans siblings, and we are standing strong against them.”
Murray spoke of the importance of standing for trans and non-binary communities, stating that the level of injustice against them is “much higher.”
“We are only as strong as the most vulnerable in our society, and it’s up to us to step up and stand up and walk forward for those people who can’t walk forward,” Murray told the crowd ahead of Sunday’s parade.
The St. Pat’s for All Parade founded 26 years ago as a protest against the LGBT community’s exclusion from the Manhattan St. Patrick’s Day Parade, has evolved from a small event featuring roughly 40 participants into one of the biggest events in the neighborhood, offering organizers a source of hope that the message of the 2025 parade will resonate and reverberate among the local community.
Dromm spoke of how the parade’s success and evolution over the past quarter-century offers hope and said this year’s parade took on a greater significance than previous years, offering a staunch defense of the trans and immigrant communities.
“We are not going back. We have made too much progress to go back,” Dromm said. “St. Patrick’s is about immigrants and that’s what this parade is about also, immigrants LGBT people. We are DEI live.”
Won said it was “incredibly exciting” to feel the energy from thousands of people as the parade made its way down Skillman, stating that the event demonstrated that the Sunnyside community continues to affirm “our LGBTQ neighbors.”
“When the President of the United States says that they’re going to erase the T from LGBTQ and say that they’re not going to allow you to use pronouns of they/them or whatever you identify as, that is despicable,” Won said.
Archley Prudent, co-chair of St. Pat’s for All, said it was very important for organizers to let the trans community know that they are always welcome at the parade.
“It was very important to tell them that we are not treating you differently. You are part of us, you are part of our family,” Prudent said. “You are accepted here. You are welcome here.”
Gianaris pointed to the fact that the inaugural parade was heckled by anti-gay groups but has now evolved into one of the most popular days in the Sunnyside calendar, while others noted how the parade has helped inspire the Manhattan St. Patrick’s Day parade to allow members of the LGBT community to march under their own banners.
Nolan spoke of how St. Pat’s for All had also inspired the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade to allow LGBT groups to march under their own banners for the very first time this year, with the Staten Island Parade also taking place yesterday. Nolan said St. Pat’s for All represents a “true reflection” of modern-day Ireland, noting that Irish Ambassador to the US Geraldine Byrne Nason traveled from Washington DC to take part in the historic Staten Island Parade yesterday.
The event took place amid sunny but brisk conditions and featured dozens of local and international groups, including several local Boy and Girl Scout troops, local sports teams, and several local and international dance troupes, including the Dublin-based Rainbow Twirlers, a baton-twirling troupe that fundraised in order to take part in the parade.
A number of marching bands also took part in the parade, including several pipe and drum outfits. the Queer Big Apple Corps Marching Band and the Brazilian Fogo Azul marching band, while representatives from Drag Story Hour NYC also marched on Sunday.
The parade additionally featured a host of local community groups, including the LIC-based New York Irish Center, Sunnyside Gardens, Woodside-Sunnyside Runners and Woodside on the Move.
Political messages were prominent throughout Sunday’s parade, with groups such as “Gays Against Guns” calling on people to “stand up, fight back” when numerous rights were under attack. Meanwhile, the Sunnyside Reformed Church proclaimed themselves “Christians against Fascism,” while the Communist Party USA called for an end to deportations.
Saoirse Palestine NY (Irish for Free Palestine) featured by far the largest crowd of any politically motivated group, carrying several Palestinian flags and numerous placards calling for Palestinian liberation and for England to “get out of Ireland,” referring to a push for unity between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
