When spring gives way to summer, it’s time for Pride.
Formed in response to the anti-gay police raids that triggered the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Pride events typically take place in June to honor the spontaneous demonstrations that sparked the contemporary LGBTQ+ rights movement.
Not so for Toledo, whose three-day August Pride festival, beginning Friday, includes a parade, a 5K run, and a Sunday brunch.
Until 2010, the Glass City didn’t have any kind of Pride event, June or otherwise. Lexi Hayman-Staples, then-owner of the lesbian bar Outskirts, saw filling that gap as a way to give back to the community.
Now Toledo Pride executive director, Hayman-Staples and her fellow organizers spent that first summer marketing Toledo’s fledgling festival in nearby markets like Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit.
Recruiting vendors, performers, and attendees from other Prides meant Toledo needed a unique date. Hayman-Staples hoped for 1,000 attendees that first year. The result was 2,500 people cramming themselves into the Erie Street Market.
“The rest is history,” she said. “Now, August is our month, and that’s just what we do.”
Toledo isn’t alone in strategically holding Pride outside of the traditional dates. Smaller cities across the United States pick alternatives that won’t be overshadowed by cities like New York, San Francisco, and Denver, which get their pick of June dates.
In the Midwest, Pride festivals orbit around Chicago, which attracts over a million visitors for a two-week event culminating in a parade on the final weekend in June, mirroring the Stonewall Riots’ initial June 28, 1969, date.
Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus all celebrate Pride in June. Toledo’s dates compete only with Akron.
All summer long
Between Toledo Pride in August, EqualityToledo’s Love Fest in July, and the nationally recognized Pride Month in June, the summer never stops.
Community organizations like the Toledo Lucas County Public Library don’t have a problem providing additional resources to match the expanded dates, said Lucas Camuso-Stall, the library system’s director of government relations and advocacy.
In addition to book displays that highlight LGBTQ+ authors, events include this summer’s Pride & Poetry series spotlighting local queer poets, family pride nights featuring ice cream and crafts, and a partnership with regional libraries to host the traveling Small Town PRIDE book club.
“Because Toledo celebrates pride in August ... there’s a little bit of a bigger spotlight on some of the programs that we do,” Camuso-Stall said. “But we really strive to do our best to make sure that folks are finding programs that meet their needs and their interests year-round.”
In its early years, Toledo Pride’s success depended on its August date to separate the festival from larger and more established Pride events, Hayman-Staples said.
Now, the celebration stands on its own, with around 30,000 attendees expected for this weekend’s festival. It takes over $80,000 to organize the event, which is staffed entirely by volunteers — including the performers.
The Saturday of Toledo’s Pride parade is one of the busiest days of the year for Justyce Sinclaire, the drag queen who runs the Toledo Hamburger Mary’s, a drag-themed bar and burger restaurant.
Taking place just weeks before Labor Day, Toledo Pride is one of the last big events before campers, boats, and motorcycles get put away for the year and “everybody starts to hunker down for the winter,” Sinclaire said, making the Toledo’s dates “perfect planning.”
Hamburger Mary’s 2024 Toledo Pride offerings include Saturday’s Pride After Party, which will be headlined by two former competitors on RuPaul’s Drag Race , the reality television show credited with popularizing drag performances across the country.
Season 6’s Trinity K. Bonet and season 16’s Megami will be two of the 17 performers appearing at Hamburger Mary’s over the weekend. The Pride After Party begins at 10:30 p.m. at the restaurant’s recently relocated space at 329 N. Huron St., Toledo.
Pride travels
The summer is a busy season for Aaron Knowles, who balances working at Hamburger Mary’s with traveling for Pride and gay pageant events as drag queen Gizelle DeVaux.
DeVaux recently stepped down as 2023’s Miss Ohio Gay Pride, an annual pageant title that sees an Ohio drag queen participate in different Pride events around the state.
“Pride is so important, because it is the one of those moments in life where you can just be free and be you without anybody questioning who you are,” DeVaux said.
Without staggered Pride festivals on the calendar, she and other performers would be limited in which events they could attend.
Compensation is rare; the greater reward is deeper engagement with the LGBTQ+ community and the opportunity to serve as a role model for those struggling to make their voices heard, DeVaux said.
But it’s clear that negativity takes its toll when performer Anthony Davis talks about the anti-gay groups that protest the Pride events he attends as drag entertainer Solo Jackson. Whether protestors bring fire and brimstone or wield good intentions, the result still intrudes on the annual affirmations of gay dignity and rights.
“They’ll never stop. I don’t ever think that the number of Christians that come out each year will get lower, because it’s literally like a field day for them to put down others,” Jackson said.
2024’s Mr. Ohio Gay Pride, Jackson has traveled eight states in pageant pursuit. Every Pride event he’s been to, including the five Prides so far this year, has come with its own set of protesters.
Whether it’s hateful comments online or hostile faces at Hamburger Mary’s, that negativity finds a home in Toledo, too.
Providing an alternative, the performers agreed, is a reason to keep going.
“Pride is for everyone,” DeVaux said. “Being proud of who you are, regardless of who you love or what you love. You get to just be you.”
Toledo Pride kicks off on Friday at 4:45 p.m. at Promenade Park. The full event schedule can be found at toledopride.com/toledo-pride-2024 .
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