LGBTQ community shows its colors Downtown during Pride Awareness March

It’s not typical for a parade to feature two grooms, one clad in a white wedding dress… It’s not typical for a parade to feature two grooms, one clad in a white wedding dress spraying rainbow confetti onto a crowd from atop a red float.

But Pittsburgh’s Pride Awareness March isn’t your average parade.

The Pride Awareness March, which began Downtown on the Boulevard of the Allies at noon and ended at Liberty Avenue, was associated with the city’s annual PrideFest, a daylong free unity event to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its supporters. The parade, which took place on Sunday, June 10, featured 175 different groups equipped with everything from a simple banner to large, decorative floats.

In addition to drag queens jamming to Neil Young songs and scantily dressed people dancing on floats, the parade also had a more serious side. Pairs of mothers marched with children, straight couples and gay couples marched side by side and almost everybody was wearing something rainbow-colored.

This year’s PrideFest, which included vendors, carnival games and other entertainment, was the largest Pittsburgh has ever seen, with 75,000 people attending, according to early city estimates. Chris Bryan, director of marketing at the Delta Foundation, a nonprofit group that has organized Pride Weekend since 2006, said it is the fifth-largest event that Pittsburgh holds.

Aside from the Pride Awareness March and PrideFest, Pride Weekend also included Pride in the Street, a large outdoor party on Liberty Avenue the night before the march featuring singer-songwriter and lesbian icon Melissa Etheridge and other musical acts.

Many of PrideFest’s more veteran participants noted how far the event has come since its inception.

Marv McGowan, 49, who was sporting a Pittsburgh Pride March T-shirt from 1988, said he could remember when the march only attracted a few hundred people.

“People used to be afraid that someone would see them on TV, or write their name in a school paper,” McGowan said.

Kim Rech, 32, who was celebrating her fifth pride weekend on Sunday, said she could remember how sparsely attended those early events were.

“Ten years ago it was just a bunch of gay people walking around Shadyside, and now it’s turned into this,” Rech said.

Another indicator of Pride Weekend’s shift to the mainstream is its sponsors. UPMC was a top-tier sponsor. Other sponsors included high-profile companies such as Google, Starbucks and Coors Light.

Vendors of every kind packed Liberty Avenue for five solid blocks. There were the usual food vendors and carnival games, but local businesses were also out in force trying to create new customers and handing out applications.

“The Pride March gives organizations and businesses an opportunity to show their support for the LGBT community,” Bryan said.

Jamie Scarano, UPMC’s director of integrated inclusion, agreed. She said that UPMC was at PrideFest as part of their Healthy Communities Initiative.

“These are our patients and employees,” Scarano said. “We’re out here to bring awareness to UPMC’s LGBT initiatives.”

Signs of growing support for gay rights in Pittsburgh showed prominently in recent days. On June 8, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced that he joined Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, a group in support of gay marriage. And on June 12, City Council named the date Sharon Needles Day in honor of the popular Pittsburgh drag performer and winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

In 2011, Pittsburgh was ranked the fifth-gayest city by Advocate Magazine, a gay news publication. It has since fallen to 19 on Advocate’s List, but those at the PrideFest seemed to find the event important to the LGBTQ community.

Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance participated in the Pride March as well. They marched as a small group with a blue banner that said Rainbow Alliance in multicolored letters.

Rainbow Alliance president Tricia Dougherty said her organization takes part in the march every year.

“It’s a place where people go to feel accepted,” she said, adding that the atmosphere of PrideFest frees Rainbow Alliance members from censoring themselves as they sometimes feel the need to on campus.