To say that the Portland Pride Waterfront Festival and Portland Pride Parade are a big deal would be an understatement.
It is, more than ever, part of Portland’s culture, perhaps bigger and better than ever — especially the parade.
Somewhere in the range of 12,000 people participated in the parade last year, and about 45,000 attended the celebration in downtown Portland, said Debra Porta, executive director of Pride Northwest, which organizes the festival and parade. And more sponsors continue to sign up to be involved to support the LGBTQIA2S+ community, alongside the likes of longtime supporters Nike, Fred Meyer, Autodesk, Columbia Sportswear and Lease Crutcher Lewis.
The festival includes more than 250 vendors, including a LGBTQIA2S+ makers market, and live music and entertainment, highlighted by drag queen (and Portland native) Jinkx Monsoon. It will take place from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, July 20, and 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, July 21 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park. The parade begins at 11 a.m. Sunday, and goes from the North Park Blocks to the festival on Naito Parkway.
“Portland as a city actually isn’t big enough for as large of a parade as Portland Pride could get — the gathering spaces, the infrastructure (downtown),” Porta said.
“We had an expanded footprint on the Waterfront last year — and we’ve already outgrown it,” Porta added. “We have the community spaces and youth, family and senior tents; our veterans area continues to grow. There are places for folks to get resources, but also activities and more food vendors than any year we’ve had.” Of course, there’ll also be adult and nonalcoholic beverages.
All sales benefit Pride Northwest, which is celebrating its 30th year.
The theme of the festival is “Feast and Love.” Pride Northwest states on the Portland Pride website that the theme “invites us to come together as a community, as a family, and create a new chapter in our story. We extend an invitation to all, regardless of age, gender or background, to bring your authentic self to the table of LOVE that Pride Northwest has prepared for you. Together, we can honor the past, embrace the present, and forge a future that is even brighter and more inclusive than ever before.”
The festival and parade are about the community of LGBTQIA2S+, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and trans, queer and questioning, asexual (or agender) and two-spirit. Porta said Portland Pride welcomes members of all communities, even as the general population contains detractors.
“There are definitely lots of allies and supportive people, there have been for a long time,” Porta said. “At the same time, we get a significant amount of critics/opposition on some level, somewhere. On some level somebody threatens us every year; not necessarily coming to do some harm, but someone reaching out with judgment and hatred.
“That’s going to happen every year. Around the state there have been direct confrontations, with protestors disrupting smaller Prides. Portland is better than other places, but it doesn’t mean we’ve arrived.”
Indeed, the fight continues for rights, equality and acceptance, Porta added. “People don’t realize how tenuous our status in Oregon can be at times,” she said. “People across the state are working to take those away (rights, equality, acceptance), and it’s working in some places. I don’t take that for granted.”
The Portland Waterfront Pride Festival and Portland Pride Parade were moved to July a few years back, away from the official Pride Month in June, so as to distinguish itself among other activities in Portland, mainly the Rose Festival. Being in July allows it to really be exposed as a Portland celebration.
Porta reiterated that Portland Pride doesn’t act like it has “arrived,” because “if we don’t continue to be visible and have our voices be heard, it’s really easy to backslide and not be heard. We need to make sure our community’s needs are being met.”
Working on behalf of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals continues, because “if we don’t see progress, it’s hard to get excited about ‘at least we’re not being hunted on the street.’”
Corporate support is great, she added, but “it cannot be denied that it’d be super easy for companies and people to slap a rainbow on it and feel committed.”
The Portland Pride festival and parade highlight the LGBTQIA2S+ community, which sadly lost the iconic drag queen Darcelle — aka Walter Cole — a few years ago. Luminaries such as Poison Waters and Jinkx Monsoon continue to be the faces of the Portland drag world, a symbol of the overall community, but Porta points out that many individuals should be celebrated.
“There is a whole army in the community helping people,” she said. “A lot of that can be overlooked when you have a larger-than-life person (like Darcelle) … being a flash point for visibility.”
People are encouraged to attend the festival and parade and be themselves. Porta said “we’re not telling people what to be.”
She added: “We have to stay within Portland law, but other than that, our expectations are that people are going to show up as their authentic selves.”
The hard work in taking its “rightful place in the public sphere” continues for Portland Pride folks.
“Pride is only the beginning of the work. It’s never intended to be a big party,” Porta said. “It’s the beginning and organizing part to do work to make sure our community has equal footing in this country and around the world.”
More: portlandpride.org .
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