Zadie’s mother, Heather Schwager of the Palisades, said she was happy to see many local families come out to support kids like Zadie during a fraught moment for LGBTQ+ communities.

“I’m so glad we live in a city that puts something like this on, especially reading the news in other places,” Schwager said.

Around Zadie, toddlers wobbled as they enthusiastically waved tiny flags. Little kids blew bubbles and ran up and down the parade route. Older teens held protest signs, laughing and posing for photos in elaborate rainbow get-ups. Zadie moved along with the crowd, supported by mom, dad and their art teacher from Key Elementary School, Tiik Pollet, who drives a 750 Honda Shadow alongside other motorcyclists during Pride every June, and was motivated to walk beside Zadie on Saturday because of recent attacks on LGBTQ+ communities.

“These kids need to feel safe,” Pollet said. “They need to celebrate their truth and feel supported by a community.”

Children have been thrust into the heart of a conservative backlash to LGBTQ+ rights this year, with commentators and far-right agitators making false and dangerous claims that gay and transgender people are “grooming” kids by, for example, holding story time while dressed in drag, or allowing kids to discuss gender identity in school.

While these views are not popular in deep-blue D.C., which is home to a proud and established LGBTQ+ community, its status as the nation’s capital and seat of Congress means it attracts attention and draws frequent protests. So organizers of Saturday’s march toward the Georgetown Library sought to advertise quietly and organically an event meant to celebrate children out loud.

Despite organizers’ best efforts to keep details offline, the parade drew some negative attention in the comment sections of a few conservative media sites in the days leading up to the event. In the hours before the parade began, the Rainbow Defense Coalition gathered in a nearby kitchen to prepare for the worst, although everyone had high hopes that the children’s parade would meander through Georgetown unbothered. They discussed a strategy for monitoring the parade route over coffee, while simultaneously decorating their faces with glitter and stickers. From the crowd’s edges, the group kept watch for any protesters inspired to interrupt the kid’s event after adversarial coverage in right-wing publications and on Fox News.

Children’s librarians from the Georgetown, Palisades and Tenley branches of the D.C. Public Library invited neighborhood groups and schools to send delegations to march in the parade as part of festivities for Pride Month, an annual celebration of the contributions of LGBTQ+ people that began after the Stonewall riots, the gay liberation protests of 1969.

“We want everyone to know we love them and support them, no matter who they grow up to love,” said children’s librarian Marissa Bateman.

Despite the cheerful atmosphere that permeated Saturday morning, many older teens and adults celebrating the event could not do so without thinking of the news headlines from other parts of country — of state legislators moving to curtail the rights of LGBTQ+ people, of schools banning books with themes of diversity and inclusion, and of threats against drag queen story times. On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill outlawing puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, making Texas the most populous state to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

“A lot of the attacks on queer people right now are targeting kids,” said Carly Hughes, a 24-year-old teacher in Arlington County, who came to support the Rainbow Defense Coalition. Now more than ever, they added, children need to see that LGBTQ+ people have the support of a community in the face of efforts to turn back the clock on hard-won human rights.

“For me, Pride is always a protest against not being accepted,” Hughes said, “but this year it is heightened.”

Saturday’s celebration unfolded without incident, but the Rainbow Defense Coalition has often intervened to shield children and families from protesters with large rainbow-colored umbrellas during drag queen story times around the region. Those events, which expose children to themes of equality, inclusion, tolerance and empathy, have been targeted by threats and hate groups in places including Fairfax County and Montgomery County.

Some of the older children in the crowd also felt that celebrating Pride is even more important this year.

Patience, 17, who identifies as trans/nonbinary and spoke on the condition that only their first name be used for privacy reasons, has been going to Pride events with their mother, Lacie Wooten-Holway, since infancy, but the first parade they remember was the summer after fifth grade. With freshly dyed hair in the colors of the bisexual flag, Patience marched with family and friends in the massive parade at Dupont.

“There was such a feeling of love,” Patience said. But this year, “the energy is different.”

They pointed out that Saturday’s parade was monitored by dozens of police parked along the route and the unofficial bodyguards carrying rainbow umbrellas. Organizers even gave participants a warning about what to do if protesters showed up.

“It makes you wonder why we need so much protection,” Patience said.