After a two-year pause, Provincetown's Carnival Parade returned on August 18, 2022!

With the theme of Monsters, Myths & Legends, our float was decorated to celebrate twelve LGBTQIA+ Legends, as chosen by our members and parade committee.

It is with great honor that PFLAG Cape Cod, in partnership with Fenway Health

and Cape & Islands Trans Resource Fund, proudly presents twelve individuals who have advanced equality through the years and whom we consider to be…

Alan Turing (June 23, 1912 – June 7, 1954) was an English mathematician and logician. He studied at the University of Cambridge and at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. In his seminal 1936 paper “On Computable Numbers,” he proved that there cannot exist any universal algorithmic method of determining truth in mathematics and that mathematics will always contain undecidable (rather than unknown) propositions. That paper also introduced the Turing machine. He believed that computers eventually would be capable of thought indistinguishable from that of a human, and proposed a simple test (see Turing test) to assess this capability. His papers on the subject are widely acknowledged as the foundation of research in artificial intelligence. He did valuable work in cryptography during World War II, playing an important role in breaking the Enigma code used by Germany for radio communications. After the war, he taught at the University of Manchester and began work on what is now known as artificial intelligence. In the midst of this groundbreaking work, Turing was found dead in his bed, poisoned by cyanide. His death followed his arrest for a homosexual act (then a crime) and sentence of 12 months DES, a procedure commonly referred to as chemical castration, as an alternative to prison.

Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” who “dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.” As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called “powerful, melodic, and intense” by the Poetry Foundation. Lorde's poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity. Lorde died on November 17, 1992, on the island of St. Croix after battling cancer for more than a decade. Over her long career, Lorde received numerous accolades, including an American Book Award in 1989 for A Burst of Light. She is remembered today for being a great warrior poet who valiantly fought many personal and political battles with her words.

Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American activist for LGBTQIA+ equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis from 1958 to 1963. She also worked closely with Frank Kameny on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the United States government. In the 1970s, Gittings was involved in the American Library Association’s gay caucus, the first such in a professional organization, to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in 1972. Her self-described life mission was to tear away the “shroud of invisibility” related to homosexuality, which had theretofore been associated with crime and mental illness. She was awarded a lifetime membership in the American Library Association, and the ALA named an annual award for the best gay or lesbian novel the Barbara Gittings Award. GLAAD also named an activist award for her. At her memorial service, Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, “What do we owe Barbara? Everything.”

Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was the first transgender woman to become widely known in the United States, and one of the first notable examples of gender confirmation surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer, and recording artist. After her military service during World War II, she remained in Europe, where she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations in Denmark during 1952. She returned to the United States in the early 1950s, and her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people. Jorgensen often lectured on the experience of being transgender and published an autobiography in 1967.

Edith Windsor (June 20, 1929 – September 12, 2017) was an American LGBTQIA+ rights activist and a technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the 2013 Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Court's decision was considered a landmark legal victory for the same-sex marriage movement in the United States. The Obama administration and federal agencies extended rights, privileges, and benefits to married same-sex couples because of the decision. Edith passed away September 12, 2017, in New York City at the age of 88, with her wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor, by her side.

Harvey Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was a prominent voice in gay rights activism in San Francisco in the seventies. He became the first openly gay person elected to public office, winning a seat on the San Francisco City Council Board in 1977. During his time in office, he sponsored a bill banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment because of sexual orientation. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk’s bill. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community, and has been called “the most famous and most significant openly LGBT official ever elected in the United States”.

James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and activist, he garnered acclaim across various mediums, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953. Decades later, Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005. Baldwin's work fictionalizes fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures. Themes of masculinity, sexuality, race, and class intertwine to create intricate narratives that run parallel with some major political movements toward social change in mid-twentieth century America, such as the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement. Baldwin's protagonists are often but not exclusively African American, and gay and bisexual men frequently feature prominently in his literature. These characters typically face internal and external obstacles in their search for social and self-acceptance. His reputation has endured since his death, and his work has been adapted for the screen to great acclaim.

Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBTQIA+ advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first transgender woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast TV.  Additionally, Cox was honored by GLAAD with its Stephen F. Kolzak Award for her work as an advocate for the trans community.

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) was an outspoken advocate for gay rights, and was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Johnson was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and co-founded the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), alongside close friend Sylvia Rivera. Johnson was also a popular figure in New York City's gay and art scene, modeling for Andy Warhol, and performing onstage with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches. She was also known as the “Mayor of Christopher Street” due to being a welcoming presence in the streets of Greenwich Village. From 1987 through 1992, Johnson was an AIDS activist with ACT UP. On July 6, 1992, Marsha’s body was found in the Hudson River. While officials ruled her death a suicide, and refused to investigate her death further. The LGBTQIA+ community strongly rejected this assertion, believing it to be more likely that Marsha was a victim of an attack, as trans women, particularly women of color, are frequent targets of hate crimes. Marsha’s funeral was attended by hundreds of mourners, with crowds of attendees spilling into the street.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (born October 25, 1940) is a trans woman activist and community leader for trans rights. Major has dedicated 50 years of her life to organizing for trans women of color. She is a veteran of the Stonewall riots, a survivor of Attica Correctional Facility. She is also a founding executive director of Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), a nonprofit that centers and supports trans, gender-nonconforming, and intersex people in and out of prisons, jails, and detention centers. Upon the election of the 45th president, Major moved from the relative comfort of her home in San Francisco to Arkansas, where she heard a call to help the trans community build a stronger movement. In Little Rock, she’s building the Griffin-Gracy Education Retreat and Historical Center, lovingly known as the “House of GG.” When asked what she hoped her legacy would be in a 2018 interview, she said: “If ain’t right, fucking fix it, whatever it takes.”

Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish poet and dramatist. The son of a surgeon, Wilde attended Trinity College, Dublin, and later Oxford University, becoming widely known for his wit while still an undergraduate. An outspoken proponent of Aestheticism, he gave a lecture tour in the U.S. and established himself in London circles by his wit and flamboyance. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), combines gothic elements with mockery of bourgeois morality. His macabre play Salomé (1893) was later adapted as the libretto of Richard Strauss’s opera; his other plays, all successes, include Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895). Wilde's greatest work was the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1899), a satire of Victorian social hypocrisy. Two critical dialogues, “The Decay of Lying” and “The Critic as Artist,” are admired as equally brilliant. Though happily married, in 1891 he began an intimate relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the marquess of Queensberry. Accused by Queensberry of being a sodomite, Wilde sued for libel and lost, then was arrested for sodomy and convicted in a trial that became internationally notorious. Imprisoned at Reading Gaol (1895–97), he wrote a recriminatory letter to his lover that was edited and published as De Profundis (1905). After his release, he moved to Paris; his only later work was The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), on inhumane prison conditions. He died suddenly of acute meningitis in 1900.

Senator Tammy Baldwin (born February 11, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Wisconsin since 2013, and is the first openly LGBTQIA+ senator in American history. A staunch, longtime defendant of LGBTQ+ rights, Sen. Baldwin has most recently helped introduce the Equality Act: the nation’s first ever comprehensive legislation to protect LGBTQIA+ people from discrimination. Baldwin identifies as a progressive, and has a consistently progressive voting record. In addition to being a staunch defender of LGBTQIA+ rights, she supports Medicare for All, gun control, and opposed the Iraq War.

Funding for our participation in the Provincetown Carnival Parade is provided by Beacon Financial Planning.