Tag Archives: pride

Seattle Parks backs off plan for nude zone but says Friends of Denny Blaine improvements coming

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(Image: Seattle Parks)

(Image: Seattle Parks)

Seattle Park says it will not move forward with a proposal shaping a new nude and neighbor-friendly policy for Denny Blaine Park that would have created two zones across the public space on the shores of Lake Washington. But its efforts to improve the popular sunbathing spot will continue with help from neighbors and the growing Friends of Denny Blaine community group.

“We appreciate all members of the community for providing feedback and heartfelt thoughts about Denny Blaine Park—our parks system is made better by the engagement and advocacy of residents and users,” Seattle Parks and Rec said in its announcement. “Through the community engagement process it became clear that the suggested guidelines were already covered under existing Parks Code.”

CHS reported here on the proposal that would have split the park across Zone A near the water where visitors are invited to enjoy the space with or without a swimsuit ,and Zone B around the park’s entrance where visitors are asked to wear clothing or, at least, a towel. The parks department said comment regarding the proposed “supplemental use guidelines” for Denny Blaine closed on June 6th and that feedback did not line up with codifying nudity in the beach park popular in nudist and queer communities. Continue reading →

New signal box portraits bring familiar faces to Broadway for Seattle’s 50th Pride

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This year’s Capitol Hill Pride will bring familiar faces to Broadway. The Broadway Business Improvement Area announced that traffic signal boxes up and down the street are now wrapped with new Pride portraits of LGBTQIA+ heroes in Seattle history.

Portraits include Cal Anderson, the state’s first openly gay legislator and park namesake, Judge Mary Yu, who officiated many of the city’s first same-sex marriages the day Washington legalized the vows in 2014, Ingersoll Gender Center founder Marsha Botzer, ACT-UP organizer Brian Day, and Wildrose bar owners Martha Manning and Shelley Brothers.

“Through our economic recovery grant, we employed local queer and trans artists to portray individuals who made a difference in the LGBTQIA+ community in Seattle, as chosen by a PrideFest selection committee,” the BBIA said about the new project. “The process took two and a half years but we are finally there.” Continue reading →

37 pictures from Saturday’s Volunteer Park start to Seattle Pride 2024: best looks, best t-shirt messages, and best response to bible megaphone guy

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Seattle’s 50th year of Pride celebrations started with a party Saturday in Volunteer Park.

Organizers from the city’s official Seattle Pride group say some 12,000 people attended Saturday’s free event of music, drag, DJs, dance, and fun that has grown into the annual kickoff for June’s festivities.

While there will now be a lull before the largest Pride events take place in Seattle to end the month, you’ll find plenty of smaller parties and celebrations across the city and at venues across Capitol Hill including Seattle’s strongest concentration of queer bars and clubs up and down Pike, Pine, and Broadway.

Make sure to save some energy. Capitol Hill’s Pride 2024 calendar has a few highlights to look forward to:

JUNE 22ND AND 23RD — Punk Rock Flea Market Capitol Hill: “The Punk Rock Flea Market continues our never-ending tour of Seattle and environs by bringing our patented blend of bargains, beats and booze to the VERY CENTER of PNW alternative culture – the Queer Bohemian wonderland of Capitol Hill!” — More info on the CHS Calendar

JUNE 22ND — Capitol Hill Pride: The organizers at Capitol Hill Pride are tenacious. They’ve stubbornly continued to hold their “march and rally” for 15 years now in longstanding opposition to the much larger Seattle PrideFest group’s efforts. They have a doggie drag costume contest. Seattle PrideFest has a doggie drag contest. Might as well enter both. The grassroots approach usually means pretty underwhelming participation and crowds in the dozens but, if nothing else, it can be interesting to see who gets roped in every year. In 2024, the organizers are boasting planned participation by the Mexican consulate. You can learn more at capitolhillpridefestival.info.

JUNE 29TH — PrideFest Capitol Hill: This is the big street festival and fair in Cal Anderson Park you’re thinking of. Organizers are back in 2024 with plans to close Broadway from John to Roy, turn Barbara Bailey Way into a festival street, and fill Cal Anderson with Drag Queen Storytime, a pet drag show, and the PrideFest Capitol Hill Dance Party with C89.5 DJs to close it all down. — More info on the CHS Calendar

JUNE 29TH AND 30TH — PRIDE WEEKEND — Varies!: Capitol Hill’s Pride weekend parties and beer gardens along Pike/Pine and Broadway have grown in scale with streets closed to traffic and multiple stages. As usual, Sunday’s big parade takes place downtown.

More scenes from Saturday’s Pride in the Park, below.

Continue reading →

Seattle’s 50th year of Pride begins with Saturday’s Pride in the Park on Capitol Hill

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The 50th anniversary celebration of Pride in Seattle will begin Saturday with the return of the annual Pride in the Park day of music, drag, DJs, dance, and fun in Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park.

While the annual Broadway parade and party in Volunteer Park tradition didn’t start until 1980, celebrants will be remembering 1974 and the city’s first celebration of queer love:

Seattle Pride in the Park will kick off Seattle’s 50th annual Pride Month celebration on Saturday, June 1 at Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill. From 12pm – 7pm, Seattle Pride in the Park will feature a can’t-miss lineup of LGBTQIA+ performances, a dance-focused stage with an adjacent alcohol garden (21+), food trucks, local nonprofit booths, queer vendors, and more. The free event also includes plenty of family friendly fare – including Drag Queen Storytime – and a teen space designed and hosted by youth in a collaborative internship between Seattle’s LGBTQ Center and Seattle Pride.

The annual Volunteer Park event has become the traditional start of a month of Pride celebrations in Seattle and on Capitol Hill including the Broadway street fair, beer gardens along Pike/Pine, and the downtown parade.

Here is a look at some of the scenes from last year’s sunny Pride in the Park start.

 

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‘Queer visibility’ — Queer/Pride announces 2024 lineup for growing Capitol Hill music festival

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(Image: Queer/Pride Festival)

 

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As it joins in a fight to push back on the outmoded and misguided policies of “lewd conduct” enforcement, Capitol Hill’s Queer/Bar family of LGBTQIA+ bars and clubs is getting ready for a party and a 2024 Pride celebration of being seen and heard across the country.

Continuing efforts to grow its annual Pride party to join with celebrations at other nearby venues into a weekend neighborhood street party across Pike/Pine, the Queer/Pride Festival has announced its 2024 lineup including Tegan and Sara, Santigold, Rico Nasty, and Perfume Genius.

“Our mission is to create a safe and fun space for our Pacific Northwest lgbtqiak+ community to celebrate our culture, honor our history, strengthen our unity, and recognize our diversity,” Joey Burgess said in the announcement this week on the acts planned to headline this year’s party on 11th Ave. “We strive to generate Queer visibility throughout our festival, Seattle, and the nation,” Burgess said.

CHS reported here in 2023 on the effort to grow Queer/Pride as a three-day music festival of near Capitol Hill Block Party proportions. Organizers point out that street festival and the beer gardens at neighborhood bars take up a much smaller footprint than the annual Block Party but the growth of the three-day, ticketed event is undeniable. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | What it looked like when the Seattle Dyke March moved into Volunteer Park

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Another Capitol Hill Pride has come and gone but let’s soak up a little more of the celebratory vibes and causes of June 2023 in the neighborhood’s annual festivities and rallies. Here is what it looked like on Broadway. And here is it what looked like in Volunteer Park as the Seattle Dyke March started on its path to a new era for the annual event.

CHS reported on the changes for the Dyke March as organizers looked to a new focus for the event beyond the annual march while also hoping to establish a new home for the gathering. Continue reading →

Broadway’s Pride is back — Big crowds, lots of love at Capitol Hill street festival, Seattle Dyke March, and Trans Pride rally

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With reporting by Soumya Gupta, CHS intern

Last year, Pride returned to its rightful space on Capitol Hill with a restoration of June celebrations on Broadway and in Cal Anderson Park after two years of pandemic delays and cancellations.

This weekend, Capitol Hill Pride jumped forward, catching up with past turnout — and then some — for the celebration of love and freedom on Capitol Hill with PrideFest filling Broadway and the park with vendor tents, tables, and activities organized by members of the community and local businesses honoring acceptance and inclusivity.

Bars and restaurants shared the streets with District 3 candidates and temporary tattoo vendors. Between the Broadway crowds and the weekend parties across the Hill and Pike/Pine, some businesses did a pandemic year’s worth of business on the weekend. But the receipts were surpassed by the vibes.

Capitol Hill’s Pride is back, baby. Continue reading →

‘Carrying the torch for our transcestors,’ Trans Pride Seattle 2023 rallies for its 10th anniversary with a June celebration in Volunteer Park

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Ten years after the first Trans Pride Seattle marched into Cal Anderson Park, veterans from that June night in 2013 and first-timers joined hundreds of people in Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park to represent the strength of the city’s TwoSpirit, Trans and Gender Diverse community and allies.

“For 10 years, we’ve never let anything stop us from celebrating Trans joy, life, and love—and this year is no different!,” the organizers at the Gender Justice League wrote. “In a year of 450+ proposed anti-trans bills, spaces like Trans Pride Seattle are more important than ever. TPS continues to honor and carry the torch of our transcestors who created Pride as a means of cultural communion and social dissent.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Pride Weekend 2023: Trans Pride, PrideFest takes over Broadway and Cal Anderson, and a new path for Seattle Dyke March

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A PrideFest scene from 2022 as Pride returned to its rightful space after years of pandemic cancellations and delays

75 F and mostly sunny. Sounds like it is time for PrideFest. The annual free Pride festival on Broadway and in Cal Anderson returns Saturday as a centerpiece to LGBTQIA+ celebrations across Capitol Hill this weekend. Also check out our news on the important changes for the annual Dyke March. The PrideFest 2023 schedule is below along with the rest of the highlights from the weekend around the Hill. Happy Pride.

2023 CAPITOL HILL PRIDE

  • FRIDAY JUNE 23RD: TRANS PRIDE SEATTLE — Trans Pride Seattle got back on its feet in 2022 — but not in time to be part of celebrations in June. This year, the celebration of transgender freedom continues its new tradition of gathering in Volunteer Park with a Friday night rally and party. Continue reading →

The last Seattle Dyke March (as we know it) moves off Broadway and into the streets around Volunteer Park

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A rider in 2022’s march

By Kali Herbst Minino

Capitol Hill Pride weekend tradition the Seattle Dyke March is moving off Broadway into Volunteer Park to distance itself from the Seattle Police Department and to set a new course for its future role in the city’s LGBTQIA+ celebration.

“The Seattle police have a very, very long, long history of corruption,” organizer Jill Mullins tells CHS. “They don’t make a lot of people in the community feel safe.”

The Saturday, June 24 march will now begin in the park and pass along 13th Ave E, 14th Ave E, and E Mercer.

Organizers at Seattle Dyke March, the group that puts on the march and other LGBTQ+ community events, changed their rallying point of nearly 30 years for a mix of logistical reasons rooted around avoiding police involvement. Continue reading →