LGBT Pride 2003: The Portland LGBT Celebration

Calling all lions, tigers and queers, come out come out wherever you are for LGBT Pride 2003! The two-day festival, widely known as Gay Pride, kicks off Saturday at noon and reaches its pinnacle during Sunday's Pride Parade.

You may have heard of Gay Pride before, but always asked yourself, "What is it and why does the queer community need a pride festival?"

The answers you've been looking for are finally here.

LGBT Pride is both celebratory and commemorative. The festival, which is more than just a parade, aims to not only recognize and celebrate the diversity and strength of the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) community, but also to memorialize the Stonewall Riots.

"LGBT Pride is definitely commemorative," says Jack Keegan, President of Pride NW, the nonprofit organization in charge of the weekend of events. Because LGBT Pride's true mission and historical significance isn't well-known, Keegan believes that it not only has a wide influence on the city of Portland, but is also educational to the queer community.

Commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a series of violent clashes between police and homosexuals in New York City lasting five days, is important because it was the first uprising of the LGBT community. After the riots, which also took place in June, Pride events began to surface all over the world to commemorate and celebrate the Greenwich Village rebellion.

A year after the riots, Portland followed suit and had its first Gay Pride event in 1970. A small celebration then, it has snowballed ever since, with recent year's parades drawing an estimated 50,000 supporters. With each person that steps out of the closet, more faces appear along the parade route.

And LGBT Pride is definitely a celebration. "It's hard to ignore that there are queer people when there are an enormous amount of them down at Waterfront Park," laughs Keegan.

It's a spray of gay events. From the two-day festival along the river, offering live entertainment on two different stages and rows of white-tented booths, to the Dyke March, LGBT Pride has something to offer everyone.

The unofficial kickoff of Pride weekend, the Dyke March blazes up downtown Portland streets on Friday afternoon. Even though the march isn't organized by Pride NW or officially part of their events, the Lesbian Avengers make it their own Pride Parade. This traffic-stopping, halter top-dropping march showcases the diversity within the lesbian community. If this Portland Tribune is hot of the press, look up from the paper and you might see them roaring by.

The festival, a mixed bag of booths offering free key chains, homespun goods, or cheesy slices of pizza, is setup along the waterfront and is open all day Saturday (12-8pm) and much of Sunday (12-6pm). Fenced for the second year in a row for everyone's safety, the suggested donation to get through the rainbow gates is $3.00. "The donation is important because this is an event put on for the community by the community so the community should be paying for it," says Keegan. "If we ask for the donation, we have the ability to do a lot more things."

In addition to the booths, Fish Grotto will provide a beer garden where queers or straight allies can cool off with a chilled libation. The beer garden's hours are inline with the festival's, save Saturday, when the beer garden is open until 11pm. The extended drinking time is to support the waterfront dance party that kicks off at 9pm.

This year's headliner is sure to sing, "Damn, I wish I was your lover," Sophie B. Hawkins' biggest hit and the song that earned her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Hawkins has taken time away from penning a novel and working on her third album, to come celebrate in Portland. Headlining on the main stage on Sunday at 4:30, she's only one of the talented performers that will be jumping on stage this weekend. Other local talent will also be crooning for the queer community.

The live entertainment isn't only about the tunes either. Keynote speaker, Jamison "James" Green, will be delivering his powerful message to the crowd at 2:45 on Sunday afternoon. A renowned speaker and author, Green has received nearly every award possible within the transgender community and offers thousands hope with his every word.

All of these colorful events build up to the Sunday morning parade, which steps off at 11:00 and winds through the streets of downtown Portland, showcasing over 130 contingents.

Many think the parade is the icing on the cake. The parade, which is Oregon's third largest, lines up for blocks and blocks, and is packed with LGBT's, heterosexual allies, and a whole pew of supporting religious organizations. And no matter which grandstand you're at — Pioneer Square, CC Slaughter's and Boxxes/Brig/Panorama — you never know what surprises will come around the corner. In Portland, it's legal for women to go topless in public.

In addition to the motorcade of human floats casting candy and beads to the booming crowd, it'll be difficult to turn your head without seeing a rainbow flag or a pink triangle.

The pink triangle — originating ominously from Nazi concentration camps, where homosexuals were slapped with a pink triangle patch — was optimistically reclaimed and popularized in the 1980s as a symbol of queer pride.

Similarly, the symbolism of color for the gay community eventually evolved into the rainbow flag-a vibrant display of the diversity within the queer community. Each of the seven colors of has a different meaning too (Red = Life, Orange = Healing, Yellow = Sun, Green = Nature, Royal Blue = Harmony, Violet = Spirit).

Sure to be waving one of these flags is SMYRC, the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center and the Grand Marshal of LGBT Pride 2003. "We picked SMYRC because they do a lot of good work in the community," says Keegan. They are being recognized and honored not only for the positive work they do, but also who they do it for, the community's most valuable asset: its youth.

It's important to note that LGBT Pride 2003 is driven entirely by volunteers; even the nine board members are volunteers, most are either students or have full-time jobs. And it's never too late to donate your time either. If you're interested in volunteering this weekend, head down to the waterfront and find the volunteer booth.

Whether you carry a rainbow flag, have a pink triangle on your car or just want to find out what Portland's LGBT Pride is all about, the time is now. Keegan says this year's theme, "Lions and Tigers and Queers, Oh My," reflects the queer community well. Just like Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion, Keegan believes, "We're a mix of people who have a common mission, but are very different creatures."

For more information, check out Pride NW at www.pridenw.org.

By Gina Daggett

Published in Portland Tribune, 13 June 2003