New York City is celebrating Pride Week. Thousands would gather near Bryant Prak or Union Square amid colourful flags and vibrant floats to celebrate Pride Week and Pride Month. While it is a festive season for most, it was a little different for the police officers in the New York Police Department.

On Thursday, when NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea took the podium to address this year’s preparations for the parade, his comments were outlined with disappointment and pride for his own.

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“This is what makes this department so special. We are far from perfect. But you look at the diversity of this room — whether it’s diversity of the color of your skin, your sexual orientation or anything else — you’ve heard me say, we are your police department, and I am so damn proud to be standing up here,” CNN quoted Shea as saying.

However, NYPD will not be taking part in the Pride march. Because, in the month of May, the organising body of NYC, Heritage of Pride, slapped a five-year ban on the NYPD’s involvement in the parade.

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Even though the NYPD will be present in a limited capacity at a distance but the Gay Officers’ Action League (GOAL), the LGBTQ+ organization of NYPD officers, will not be allowed to participate.

While NYC PRIDE has said that this year’s March is largely virtual, the decision has elicited a strong response from the NYPD and from its gay officers.

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“You’re taking a part of me away, because at the end of the day I should be able to be who I am and be proud of both,” CNN quoted NYPD Sgt. Ana Arboleda. as saying.

“Be proud of being a police officer. Be proud of being gay. So why can’t I be both? Why do I have to be thrown back in the closet for one aspect of me?” she added.

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According to a CNN report, this is the first year in about a decade that Arbodela will not don her navy blue, wool dress uniform as part of her annual celebration of Pride.

Talking about the visibility of LGBTQ+ officers Arbodela said, “We’re only bigger with visibility. If you take that visibility away, how can we do anything else? Progress is being visible. If you’re not visible, you’re not counted.”

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NYPD Officer Jason Samuel along with Arbodela acknowledged the tension between the police and LGBTQ+ communities.

However, GOAL will celebrate Pride with its own event in Harlem, but will be a bittersweet celebration, the officers say.

“The only thing that was achieved here was not banning the NYPD; it was banning GOAL; it was banning gay officers,” Samuel said.