The Capital Pride Alliance and WorldPride DC organizers hosted a “wrap-up party” on September 30 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to unveil the WorldPride 2025 Impact Report, highlighting the celebration’s economic and cultural reach.
The event, featuring food, drinks, and live performances, celebrated WorldPride’s success while giving LGBTQ community members a chance to reflect on the experience and the lessons learned from hosting a large-scale festival in D.C., helping build an infrastructure the city can use for future events.
In a statement, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser — who helped secure about $5 million in city funds to support WorldPride in the nation’s capital — emphasized the event’s positive outcomes.
“We are proud that Washington, D.C. is a city that brings people together, and WorldPride brought the world to D.C. and D.C. to the world,” Bowser said. “At hundreds of events, held in neighborhoods across all eight wards, we were able to showcase and celebrate our resilience, and our commitment to progress.”
According to the 84-page Impact Report, 1.2 million people from around the world attended WorldPride, generating an estimated $310.7 million through tourism, local business revenue, and job creation — resulting in $25 million in taxes for the District.
Beyond the economic impact, organizers highlighted increased “cultural and community engagement,” citing more than 400 events across the city and over 700 volunteers who helped carry them out. They also praised media coverage of Pride events, claiming it reached 100 billion global impressions, boosting visibility for the LGBTQ community and elevating discussions around civil rights and LGBTQ issues.
“WorldPride DC was more than an event — it was a defining moment in our history,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance. “Despite political attacks and many challenges, our community showed resilience, radical joy, and determination, but there is still more work to do.”
Bos noted in the report that organizers faced an uphill battle against “fear and uncertainty” within the LGBTQ community when it came to attendance. While the report did not cite a specific reason, much of the uncertainty appears tied to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which led to incidents of foreign nationals with valid visas being detained or barred entry under suspicion of attempting to enter illegally.
Additionally, President Donald Trump’s executive order refusing to acknowledge gender identity, the removal of transgender references from government websites and travel advisories, and State Department directives denying visas to transgender athletes traveling to the U.S. for competitions — including WorldPride’s Capital Cup — created further barriers.
The State Department also threatened transgender travelers who were not athletes with permanent bans if the gender marker on their visa applications did not match their sex assigned at birth, which the administration treated as “fraud” or “misrepresentation.”
Those measures are believed to have discouraged transgender and nonbinary travelers from attending WorldPride in D.C. — including, ironically, Ymania Brown, co-president of InterPride, the international umbrella group that oversees bids from cities seeking to host future WorldPride events.
As reported by The Washington Post, before Trump’s election, organizers estimated that WorldPride — a three-week festival — would draw 2 to 3 million revelers to D.C. and generate more than $780 million in revenue.
However, the Trump administration’s various orders and actions led some would-be tourists to cancel their plans. In total, only an estimated 30,000 international visitors ultimately attended WorldPride.
“Nothing could have fully prepared us for the magnitude of fear and uncertainty that gripped our community after the inauguration,” Bos said in the report. “Personally, I felt the weight of depression settle in as the political attacks continued to dehumanize the LGBTQ+ community and spur hate, impacting our everyday lives.”
District officials sought to highlight positives from the report, noting that WorldPride visitors spent $75 million on lodging, $55 million on dining, $36 million on retail, and $15 million on entertainment.
“We were anticipating a larger crowd, but the reality is that given the circumstances, I think we did okay,” Nina Albert, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, told the Post. “I think the most important thing is that folks came together in celebration. We put on a great show.”
In her first televised interview since her 2020 confirmation, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared on CBS Sunday Morning to promote her new book, offering only vague commentary to host Norah O’Donnell in defense of the Court’s legitimacy when asked whether justices might overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.
Barrett was pressed on recent remarks from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who told the Raging Moderates podcast that the Court will likely “do to gay marriage what they did to abortion” and “send it back to the states.”
Last week in Orlando, restaurateur Trina Gregory transformed 49 parking spots outside her eatery into canvases for local artists, who painted rainbow-colored murals in protest of a new federal mandate targeting street art. Under U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the department has ordered states to remove rainbow crosswalks and other murals deemed "visual distractions" from public streets, a directive embraced by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Both DeSantis and Duffy argue that rainbow crosswalks -- the primary target of their mural crackdown -- amount to political messaging and are inappropriate for public roads.
Elon Musk has waded into the Virginia governor's race to attack Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger, accusing her of "trying to weasel out" of a question about transgender students accessing bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. Musk shared a post on X highlighting Spanberger's response to WJLA reporter Nick Minock, who asked whether she supports "biological males who say they're women using women's locker rooms and bathrooms and competing in women's sports."
Spanberger stumbled in her response, noting that any attempt by a future Virginia governor or the Trump administration to impose a bathroom ban could run afoul of a 2020 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing transgender students in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.
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