Boston streets are vibrant with the colors of Pride as parade returns after 3-year hiatus

“I just want to be myself,” the Dorchester resident said of his look. “I just want to be different, that’s it.”

Singh said he was “so happy” to be attending his first Pride and had been stopped multiple times by people who asked to take selfies with him.

Saturday’s parade fell during a brief span of sunshine between the gray, chilly morning and an afternoon deluge of rain that sent revelers dashing for cover at about 2 p.m. Then, after a brief downpour, the sun re-emerged and growing crowds resumed celebrating.

The procession was comparable in size and energy to earlier Pride parades in Boston before the coronavirus pandemic and other issues shut the parade down for three years, but there were noticeable differences in its style and tone.

Organizations with political and social justice missions were positioned prominently near the front, carrying banners and signs calling for immigration reform, affordable housing, and workers’ rights. Marchers from the leather community held banners reading, “Your sex is political,” and, “Pride was a riot” — a reminder that each June’s celebrations of LGBTQ+ resilience commemorate the June 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, when gay and transgender bar patrons in New York violently opposed police oppression.

Employee groups from banks and corporations mostly walked later in the parade, in response to criticism from some in the community who felt those groups — which often include supporters who do not identify as LGBTQ+ — had taken on too much prominence over the past decade or so. All marching groups were limited to 75 members so none could be excessively large.

One of the first groups held signs with black backgrounds and photographs of transgender people killed for being who they were, including Diamond Jackson-McDonald, a 27-year-old Black trans woman from Philadelphia who was shot and killed on Thanksgiving, and Unique Banks, a 21-year-old Latina trans woman fatally shot in Chicago in January.

Mason J. Dunn, 37, of Tewksbury, said he organized the mobile memorial “to recognize all the trans and gender-expansive people who are not marching with us today because they have been taken due to hate violence and bias.”

The parade returned at a fraught moment for the LGBTQ+ community, which has been targeted by conservative politicians and far-right extremists as the latest focus of an ongoing culture war. State lawmakers have filed more than 530 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country this year, and 74 have become law, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

In Massachusetts, attacks on LGBTQ+ residents have come in the form of hateful graffiti, death threats to Boston Children’s Hospital staff for providing gender-affirming care, and neo-Nazi-led protests at drag queen story hours in Jamaica Plain, the Seaport, Fall River, and Taunton.

Karen Kirchoff, 66, said she felt compelled to participate in Pride this year in response to the attacks.

“I usually avoid parades, and since the pandemic, I haven’t been out much, but there’s been so much rollback of LGBTQ rights all across the country,” the Roslindale resident said. “Parades aren’t my comfort zone, and being unmasked isn’t my comfort zone, but I feel like we just all need to stand up and come out for each other.”

Parade organizers and Boston police said they have been working together to ensure that the parade would be safe. Police on motorcycles led the parade through the city, and other uniformed officers were visible along the route, but the police presence was mostly unobtrusive. There were no arrests or reports of incidents along the route, according to Officer Kim Tavares, a Boston police spokesperson.

At the parade’s end on Boston Common, a man stood on a stepstool with a microphone and Bible in hand, reading verses aloud to a small group of supporters. Several people booed the man as they passed, and some stopped to argue.

“They were saying homosexuality is a sin,” said Evan Berry, 29, of Somerville, after a tense back-and-forth with the group. “I responded that homosexuality is not a choice.”

Saturday’s procession was the first in three years after the 2020 and 2021 parades were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Then, in July 2021, the former organizing committee announced that it would shut down after critics said its white leadership was insensitive to the concerns of Black, Indigenous, and people of color as well as transgender community members.

Boston Pride for the People was formed amid the turmoil with the former Pride Committee and stepped in to organize a Pop-Up Pride event in lieu of the parade last June. Then the all-volunteer organization announced in February that it would revive the parade with a new focus on reflecting the community’s diverse experiences.

Ebony Chandler, 23, said she was excited to see people of many ages, races, and LGBTQ+ identities gathered as a community.

“There’s just so many smiles and happiness everywhere. It’s just a good time to be here,” said the Mattapan resident. “I feel like there’s not a lot of times that Boston queer people get to be together, especially publicly, so I’m taking advantage of June as much as I can.”

It was the first Pride for Lyah DeJesus, 16, who wore a cropped T-shirt emblazoned with the message, “My skin is NOT inappropriate. My body is NOT a distraction.”

“Me being who I am shouldn’t be a problem for anybody else,” explained the Dorchester teen, who said she felt embraced by the community at the festival on Boston Common and had quickly bumped into a friend from school.

“I feel like everybody is welcome,” she said. “There’s so many different people here. I love it. I’m having lots of fun.”

Globe correspondent Alysa Guffey contributed to this report.

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.