The National Park Service will close the park at Dupont Circle, a gathering place for the city’s L.G.B.T.Q. community, during a major Pride Month event this weekend that is already grappling with cancellations and pulled corporate sponsorships.
The event, WorldPride, is an international celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community that is held each June in a different city. Washington won the bid for this year’s edition, which began in mid-May and runs through Sunday, in 2022.
The Park Service will fence off the Dupont Circle park during WorldPride celebrations from Thursday to Monday as a “public safety measure,” said Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the agency, in a statement first shared on Monday. The statement cited “a history and pattern of destructive and disorderly behavior” in the park during previous Pride celebrations, including vandalism of the park fountain in 2023.
The last WorldPride event in the United States, in New York City six years ago, was largely peaceful. “Five million people, and there was almost not a single incident,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the time.
The Park Service said it was closing the park in response to a request from Washington’s police force, and that the closure was in line with President Trump’s executive order in March to protect historic national monuments.
Some L.G.B.T.Q. residents and at least one elected official responded on social media by calling on Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is set to march in the city’s Pride Parade this weekend, to open the park.
“Closing the heart of D.C.’s historic gayborhood during World Pride is an absolutely appalling move and a terrible way to welcome the world to our city,” wrote Matthew Holden, a member of one of the city’s advisory neighborhood commissions.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The park sits inside a traffic circle and is administered by the Park Service, not the city.
No official WorldPride events were scheduled to be held in the park, according to the event’s website. But fencing it off during a Pride event would be a symbolic blow to an area of the capital that has been a hub for the city’s gay community for decades.
WorldPride, which is being hosted in Washington by the Capital Pride Alliance, a local group, is one of several Pride events in the United States that is grappling with a pullback in corporate sponsorship. From New York to San Francisco, longtime sponsors are growing evasive about their financial commitments or abandoning their support entirely. Pride organizers say some sponsors fear punishment from a Trump administration that is cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The Trump administration’s policies may also affect turnout at WorldPride.
One of Mr. Trump’s first actions in his second term was ordering federal agencies to recognize only two genders, male and female. As a result, some European countries have cautioned people whose passports bear a gender marker different from their assigned sex at birth against traveling to the United States.
Some international L.G.B.T.Q. groups have said they will not participate in WorldPride or any events in the U.S. this year, citing concerns about the safety of their trans and nonbinary staff.
WorldPride took a blow on Friday when Shakira canceled a concert that was meant to be part of the event’s opening celebrations, citing problems with her stage setup.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
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