Marching with Pride

SARASOTA — Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to not light up Florida’s bridges for Pride Month this year, rainbow colors still managed to make their way across one local overpass.

Project Pride SRQ held their annual Pride march over Circus Bridge in Sarasota on Saturday, where hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the historical advancements for the LGBTQ+ community.

But with recent laws aimed at restricting transgender citizens and gender-affirming care, Project Pride SRQ president Jason Champion said this year’s march decided to take on a second meaning.

“The significance of being able to walk this flag across the bridge is freedom,” Champion said. “Freedom of choice and freedom of expression.”

Champion said that mindset has always been the Sarasota organization’s mission, though now more important than ever to uphold.

“We decided that we needed to have an organization that was going to represent all communities, the gay, straight, black, white, green, purple,” he said. “We live in the greatest country in the world, and we’re just trying to have equal rights.”

More than 500 people, ranging from trans kids to church-goers, offered up their Saturday morning to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Some chose to wear their identifying color from the Pride flag while others came decked out in every shade of the rainbow they could find.

Matt Ragas, who dressed as the SRQ Angel in glittery pink knee-high boots and 10-foot angel wings, said Project Pride has helped him find a community of people to support and celebrate his larger-than-life self after moving from New York City.

As a New Orleans jazz singer, Ragas said Sarasota has offered him a safe space to continue doing what he loves.

“My audience is predominantly straight, but no one cares, and that’s really nice,” Ragas said. “Because, I can be so open and be who I am, and they still show up week after week and love me for who I am and what I’m doing.”

Suzanne Gregory, who represented St. Boniface Episcopal Church at the march, said LGBTQ+ support drives the growth of safe spaces, something her church upholds each year with their own string of multicolored lights on the roof every June.

When it comes to the intersection of religion and Pride, Gregory said the roads are paved the same.

“He always says, ‘Love you, brother,’” Gregory said. “To God, it doesn’t matter.”

While acceptance may be on the rise, many still shared a concern for current lawmakers imposing more restrictions on the LGBTQ+ community.

Some said they have been fighting those restrictions since day one.

Tsi Day Smyth, Voices of Florida operational director, spoke before the march on her experiences as a gay mother raising four kids in the Sarasota County Schools system.

She recounted her time advocating at the often-intense board meetings and the “us-versus-them” mentality that has driven many in the Pride community to forego celebrating their wins with an increasingly conservative school board.

Smyth said that mindset has to change.

“I hear people say we should be mourning our losses or battling our legislators, but I think we need a reminder that joy is resistance,” Smyth said. “Every moment that we celebrate ourselves, that is a great act of resistance. And it’s a necessary act of resistance that keeps us as a community alive.”

Xander Moricz, founder of the SEE Alliance, joined the stage to echo Smyth’s words, urging Sarasota to find its pride despite setbacks from divisive politics like those that came before them.

“We as a community have always built our own bridges and lit our own way,” Moricz said. “We cannot cancel Pride because he (DeSantis) cannot cancel our love for one another. And he cannot cancel the joy that this community holds.”

Moricz then led the crowd in a chant with lyrics from Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out,” an ode to Gov. DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.

Directed by Project Pride SRQ staff, residents marched onto Circus Bridge with their heads were held high, their 700-foot multicolored flag even higher when cars honked their support in passing.

As the flag stretched out, the words “I’m coming out, I want the world to know, got to let it show,” trickled throughout the line of walking participants.