St Petersburg, FL Pride a roaring success, but everyone caught a real break.

Video: Arrival of the trans march 48 sec

The trans march was a powerful statement from a community under siege, and the overall event was massive. It may have simply been the obstacle-strewn nature of the Bayside Drive area, but the size of the crowd and the massive traffic jams made this look like one of the big NE Prides like DC's Capitol Pride. On the other hand the much shorter march route may have concentrated the crowd.

Everyone except DeSantis and his Nazi friends caught a real break: a month ago with Fascist attacks escalating and the drag ban scheduled to go into effect days later, St Pete lookd like a major flashpoint. Instead, there were only a few Christo-fash, no militia fash and no attacks. An injunction was issued by a Federal court against the drag ban the previous day, so planned police enforcement to limit spiciness of drag performances cancelled. Police attacks on drag performers had been a real risk and had this taken place another Stonewall could have resulted. With the drag ban struck down, a proposed and possibly illegal enforcement campaign against a law that was not to go into effect for another week appeared to have been called off.

Another Stonewall could have resulted in escalation with unknown results. Any serious Fascist attack would have guaranteed swift retaliation, again leading to escalation, again with unknown results. None of this took place, a half dozen religious extremists yelling were no threat to the huge crowd.