A Pride festival that celebrates emerging from isolation
We in the LGBTQ spend a lot of time celebrating the concept and the act of coming out.
This weekend, we have the opportunity to celebrate something nearly as important: Coming back.
As we head into the 40th Phoenix Pride Festival and Parade weekend, we are sharply aware of what it means to reunite, reignite and reengage.
It’s been two-and-a-half years since Phoenix last held a full-scale Pride Festival, and for our community, its return signifies more than just a party and a parade.
It is much, much more than the 60 acres of festival space that will be filled with rainbow-clad celebrants, more than the headlining performances from Jody Watley and Neon Trees, more than the food, the fun, the dancing, the celebration.
For many in our community, this will mark the first time since the start of the pandemic that they will have a place, and a time, to be themselves.
We in Arizona still do not have statelevel equal rights protections for the LGBTQ community. While the U.S. Supreme Court has given us case law protecting our employment, in this state we can still be denied housing and turned away from public accommodations, simply because of who we are.
The result is that many members of our community in Arizona are still partially, or entirely, living in the proverbial “closet.”
For those individuals, the return of Pride means something far greater, far more personal and impacting: For many among us, and even if only for a brief 48 hour period, it means a return to self.
LGBTQ culture and history is steeped in the struggle to overcome isolation and disconnection, and the challenges of the past 18 months have summoned us to new courage and creativity.
We have wrestled with social distancing and face masking, learned to navigate video conferencing and virtual events, and found ways to stay connected to each other, and to ourselves, by means that those at Stonewall couldn’t have even imagined.
Indeed, even this year’s festival and parade will see differences, as we work to keep our community safe. There is social distancing built into this year’s festival layout. PPE, including masks and gloves and hand sanitizer, will be available. High-touch surfaces will be subject to ongoing cleaning and sanitizing.
We are encouraging all of our attendees, volunteers and participants to be fully vaccinated. And we will be offering COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, at the festival's Health and Wellness Marketplace.
Beyond health and safety, this weekend’s festivities, we hope, will provide a badly needed mental health boost for our community.
In national research earlier this year conducted by Community Marketing and Insights and the Human Rights Campaign, nearly 60% of American LGBTQ adults who were asked “How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you?” responded that “COVID-19 has made me feel more socially isolated.” That response was the most selected reply by a margin of nearly 10 percentage points.
This weekend, we will get together at Phoenix Pride Festival to address that concern head on, with the only remedy we know: Togetherness.
Back in February 2019, before the world changed, we announced our theme for what would be our next festival and parade: “Celebrating 40 years of fortitude.”
That theme has since taken on new meaning. Indeed, as a community, our fortitude has once again been tested.
This weekend, we will finally reunite with friends and family, colleagues, neighbors and allies to celebrate that fortitude, and the four decades of work that we have done here in Phoenix to achieve and maintain it.
It will be a celebration of coming out. But this year, we are also coming back. And, most important, we get to do it together.