Here’s what a September celebration of Pride looked like on Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, you can also help CHS bring back an important feature to help the community create and organize events like PrideFest Capitol Hill.
An usual Labor Day weekend celebration of Gay Pride on Capitol Hill was not exactly socially distanced but the two-day festival stretched its celebration across five blocks of Broadway on Saturday and Sunday leaving plenty of space for choices on just how you wanted to mix and match your proximity to other humans.
Marking the era, masks were fashionable and, just like the good old days, a good time “was had by all.”
“It may have been different than expected but love was felt everywhere, community came together safely and fun was had by all,” Seattle PrideFest organizers wrote in thanks to supporters and volunteers for the Labor Day weekend festival. “Please remember to support our local talent, businesses, drag queens and vendors ALL YEAR long.”
You’ll want to wear a mask — or a full fursuit — at PrideFest
Seattle’s 2021 Pride wasn’t canceled but a lot of the fun was put on hold. Organizers hope to rise above the challenges of the COVID pandemic with a two day street festival and LGBTQIA celebration this Labor Day weekend on Broadway.
PrideFest Capitol Hill will turn Broadway from John to Roy into an outdoor festival space Saturday and Sunday with speakers, music, and performances, plus specials from local businesses, food trucks, and beer gardens. The event will be free and it will echo with the realities of this second summer of pandemic — you’ll need proof of vaccination to get into a PrideFest beer garden just like at most of the neighborhood’s nightlife venues, clubs, bars, and restaurants.
It comes amid a return of indoor masking requirements after a surge in transmission rates driven especially by the delta variant’s spread among the unvaccinated. The festival also comes as part of a slate of large events moving forwards as officials and organizers have decided to soldier on with plans.
“There were a number of factors that came into play when deciding whether to hold a festival this year,” PrideFest producer and Broadway BIA director Egan Orion said in an announcement about the festival. “LGBTQIA+ people—especially younger people—are more likely to have spent the pandemic in lockdown with families that either don’t know who they are or don’t accept them because they’re queer or trans. Pride is for some the one weekend every year when people can truly be themselves. We believe we can keep each other safe through vaccines and masking, but the mental health side of things is something we need to address too, which was a driving consideration for us in making an in-person PrideFest happen this year.” Continue reading →
A day of remembrance and love, sweat, and tears marked Pride weekend on Capitol Hill Saturday and the dedication of the AIDS Memorial Pathway connecting the new plaza above the neighborhood’s light rail station to Cal Anderson Park, named for the first openly gay member of the Washington Legislature who died of AIDS in 1995.
“After six years of planning, artist selection and development, it’s finally time to share these beautiful artworks with the community,” Jason Plourde, project manager for the memorial, said. “The artworks and the themes of The AMP will bring important and meaningful connections to this special public park.”
Meanwhile, with the city emerging from the last days of months of COVID-19 restrictions, news spread Saturday of an in-person Labor Day Pride coming to Capitol Hill later this year. Pride 2021 might as well have also been rescheduled due to heat — Seattle hit 102 F just before 4 PM Saturday afternoon and is forecasted to reach new highs on Sunday and again on Monday.
Thursday, Capitol Hill-based affordable developer Community Roots Housing and GenPride are announcing the results of a community process to name their new eight-story, LGBTQ-affirming affordable senior housing project set to break ground later this year on Broadway between Pike and Pine. The result, Pride Place, a new home and community center for seniors in the core of Capitol Hill.
“The name is important because we are staking a claim in a historically LGBTQ neighborhood,” GenPride executive director Steven Knipp tells CHS.
The coming development is still wrapping up permitting with the city to create 118 units of “affordable workforce rental housing” above GenPride’s new offices and services from community organizations that will call the building home in a 4,400-square-foot LGBTQ senior community center and 3,600 square feet of commercial retail space along Broadway. Continue reading →
You’ll have a few chances to gather to celebrate Pride on Capitol Hill this weekend despite a heat wave and a wave of disappointment for one event’s organizers. Here is an updated look at Pride weekend events around Capitol Hill and the Central District as the city’s largest in-person celebrations have been rescheduled for later in the year.
(Image: @theampmemorial)
AIDS Memorial Pathway Dedication: Capitol Hill’s Pride weekend centerpiece will take place in the Capitol Hill Station Plaza with an event celebrating the dedication of the new memorial pathway connecting the gathering space to Cal Anderson Park. From noon to 3 PM Saturday, organizers say “the community is invited to visit the new pathway to sign a large red ribbon memorializing a loved one, share a message, or sign their name to be a part of this special day in Seattle history.” The ribbon will be part of a new AIDS Memorial Quilt. Artists and The AMP team will be available to answer questions and share more information on the new $2.9 million pathway of art “celebrating the lives of loved ones who have passed on throughout the AIDS crisis.” The AMP DEDICATION
Saturday, June 26
Noon – 3pm
On the plaza at the Capitol Hill Light Rail StationContinue reading →
Two former Capitol Hill business owners who have continued to organize events through the years during the neighborhood’s annual Pride celebrations are scrambling this week to apologize over their complaints to the city about a competing Taking B(l)ack Pride event.
Dozens of scheduled participants including mayoral candidates, community groups, and entertainers for the planned festival in Cal Anderson Park have announced they will now not take part in the organizers’ Capitol Hill Pride in-person events this weekend.
“I will no longer be attending Capitol Hill Pride after reading their letter to the Seattle Human Rights Commission,” Seattle City Council president and mayoral candidate M. Lorena Gonzálezsaid Friday joining a long string of cancellations. “After a year that has taken an unbelievable toll on all of our communities, I was looking forward to this opportunity to celebrate Pride in person. However, I simply cannot support an organization that is trying to stop Black people in the LGBTQ+ community from celebrating Pride in the manner that they choose.” Continue reading →
Things looked about as close to normal as they get on Capitol Hill over the weekend with a community clean-up spreading through the neighborhood around Cal Anderson Park and politicians making visits to the Hill for photo opportunities and rare chances to mingle after months of COVID-19 restrictions.
At Cal Anderson, the annual Pride clean-up helped brighten the park and tidy the streets. Around 200 volunteers helped out “from the freeway to 15th and Roy to Madison,” PrideFest’s Egan Orion tells CHS about Sunday’s Taking Pride in Capitol Hill clean-up. Continue reading →
It won’t happen next month but organizers are making plans for a large in-person summer 2021 Pride event on Capitol Hill.
“If it can be done safely, we will be doing it,” PrideFest head Egan Orion tells CHS.
As Seattle’s annual June Pride parade and festivities are already set to be online only again next month as the pandemic continues to slow, work is underway to bring together a safe festival around Broadway and Cal Anderson — even if it means waiting for later in summer.
“We’re working closely with the city on those plans and if all goes well, we expect to be one of the only non-sports festivals that will take place this year,” Orion said. “It will be a two day event, all on Capitol Hill.” Continue reading →
Hell no, you can’t cancel Pride — but you can be realistic about pandemic-era scheduling.
The organizers of Seattle Pride aren’t waiting around. In 2021, Seattle’s celebration of LGBTQIA+ will again be virtual:
As the COVID-19 pandemic response continues to restrict large public gatherings, Seattle Pride – the organizer of Seattle Pride in the Park and Seattle Pride Parade – will shift its annual LGBTQIA+ celebratory events to a virtual weekend (June 26 & 27, 2021) of speakers,
performances and more.
“With the pandemic still spreading at a rapid pace, we could not in good conscience move forward with plans for our June events which bring thousands of people together in close proximity,” said Seattle Pride Executive Director Krystal Marx. “Our efforts now shift to building on the success of last year’s virtual Pride, so we can continue to bring our community together to celebrate diversity.”
In 2020, organizers responded to the risks around large gatherings with an April decision to move the energy from the annual parade and celebrations on Capitol Hill and Seattle Center to online gatherings and virtual events. Continue reading →
Seattle mourned the passing of Roger Winters, an early pioneer in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. He passed away this week in his Shoreline home after suffering a recent bout of pneumonia. The former Capitol Hill resident and property owner was 75 years old.
“The Seattle community — and the world at large — lost a true champion for gay rights with his passing,” said Krystal Marx, Executive Director of Seattle Pride. “Roger’s decades of advocacy and political savvy helped to propel LGBTQIA+ rights forward in a way we would not have had without his involvement.”
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan agreed. In a written statement to CHS, she spoke of his relentless efforts to obtain equality for the LGBTQIA+ community. “Roger Winters worked for decades to ensure the dignity, rights and true equality for LGBTQ individuals. His voice and personal courage were unflagging over the almost 30 years that it took for LGBTQ people to get civil rights legislation,” said Durkan. “In the last four years, we have seen that these rights are far from guaranteed. This administration has directly targeted the transgender community and critical LGBTQ protections. In just the last few weeks, a U. S. Supreme Court Justice stated that hard fought wins for LGBTQ equality should be rolled back, and that some discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is a constitutional right. To honor the memory of Roger Winters and all of the other LGBTQ leaders we have lost this year, we must continue to fight.”
Susan Priebe, who met Winters in 2002 and became close friends, spoke with me to discuss Winters’ passing. She has agreed to handle his affairs on behalf of his family.
“Roger was deeply intellectual and also a fun-loving character — going from a profound philosophical statement one minute, to singing a ditty from a 50’s sitcom the next. He was a very loving and caring person, spending hours upon hours of personal time on issues and projects to improve everyone’s lives,” she said. “Roger was an insanely involved person, politically astute, a creative soul, and a very devout atheist… In the LGBT arena alone, Roger was involved with many groups from 1977 through the rest of his life.”
“Roger was a go-to leader and pioneer who helped pave the way for LGBTQ equality,” former Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen said.
Winters grew up in a conservative Christian household in Indianapolis and spent time on farms during his youth. He attended Indiana University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government. He went on to attend Harvard University on a fellowship where he became a Senior Tutor at Dudley House on campus and, later, graduated with honors in Political Science. He became an intern for Senator Birch E. Bayh, Jr., a Democrat from Indiana. In 1972, he joined the faculty of Central Washington University, where he was a Assistant Professor of Political Science. It was here, when he became involved in Seattle politics. He traveled from Kittitas County, where CWU is located, to attend board meetings of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington in Seattle.
“We white boys started out conservative because we were invisible enough to pass in a gay-unfriendly world,” Winters wrote to me in a text on March 23, 2019, while discussing his upbringing and personal growth. “Those of us who got active recognized that other people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pass were really needing the legal protection and anti-discrimination [law] we were after but we didn’t understand their point of view. We embraced diversity and sought to be inclusive.”
