Pridefest celebrates 30th anniversary with parade

Parade revelers twirled rainbow-colored Mylar streamers while marching on the quiet streets… Parade revelers twirled rainbow-colored Mylar streamers while marching on the quiet streets of a Shadyside neighborhood Saturday morning, as the gay and lesbian community of Pittsburgh celebrated International Pride Month.

Interpride, the International Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Coordinators, chose the theme “Pride Through Peace” to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the pride parade, which was sponsored this year by Pittsburgh’s Gay and Lesbian Community Center, located in Squirrel Hill.

The focus of this year’s parade was youth empowerment. The youth group from the GLCC, joined by cast members from City Theatre’s production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” led the parade from behind a Pittsburgh Police escort.

As the parade wound its way through Shadyside, drag queens in rhinestones and sequin dresses and men wearing black leather vests and chaps danced in the streets, rode in the backs of pick-up trucks and waved to bystanders. The parade route has changed over the years; it started Downtown and finished at Schenley Park in 1973. Through the years, the parade underwent many changes, from altered routes to gaining and losing groups willing to march in solidarity with the gay and lesbian community. The parade ended in a street fair on Ellsworth Avenue with games for children of gay and lesbian partners, singers on stage, and face painting. An informational booth from the Allegheny Health Department promoted safe sex, while Pitt faculty member Deborah Aaron recruited volunteers for a women’s – hetero- and homosexual – health study to assess the prevalence and risk patterns among women with coronary heart disease.

The white canopies and tables of various community organizations lined three blocks, offering services from adoption assistance to the help of the Gay and Lesbian Neighborhood Development Association.