A Pride Super Bloom in the Southland!

LGBTQ youth join mentors in celebrating PRIDE at Mi Centro in Boyle Heights (Photo courtesy of the Latino Equality Alliance)

LGBTQ PRIDE Celebrations Grow in Geographic and Cultural Diversity.

By Ari Gutierrez Arambula

On the 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn Riots, communities throughout the Southland will commemorate with marches, festivals and celebrations. PRIDE recalls the fierce response by patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub, to the harassment by local police on June 28, 1969.

During the annual summer PRIDE season of celebrations, members of the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) community and their allies, including parents and heterosexual friends, will join in festivals, parties and other special events to celebrate self-identity and support.

In recent years, LGBTQ communities have worked to expand “safe spaces”  beyond gay friendly bars and geographically isolated gay welcoming neighborhoods like West Hollywood. LGBTQ people live in communities everywhere, and research shows LGBTQ people of color live in communities of color. A geographically and ethnically diverse LGBTQ community is eager to host PRIDE celebrations and create safe spaces within the communities in which they grew up, live and work. “We want to be free to be who we are, where we are,” declares Eddie Martinez, Executive Director of the Latino Equality Alliance, an LGBTQ advocacy organization based in Boyle Heights.

In culturally diverse and geographically expansive Southern California, a remarkable growing number of PRIDE events are being held beyond the events in traditional West Hollywood and Long Beach. PRIDE events are planned in: Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles, Boyle Heights,  Altadena, Alhambra & Monterey Park, Compton, El Monte, Pasadena, Pomona, San Fernando Valley, Palm Springs, San Diego, and more.

SoCal Pride 2023 List