‘The love, the laughter’: Hoosiers ring in Pride with annual festival and parade

Even among the explosion of rainbow apparel – shirts, shoes, shades and all – Jeff Johnson’s balloon plumage stood out.

The 63-year-old Indianapolis resident rocked the rubber collection on his back, balloons of all colors swirling behind him as he waited his turn to march in the 2023 Indy Pride Parade. The eye-catching accessory punctuated his rainbow pants, face painted entirely orange and pair of Rollerblades.

Johnson, owner of the Massachusetts Avenue salon Mass Appeal, has walked (or bladed) in the parade for the past 15 years with other business owners on the street. He spent an evening assembling his outfit, as he always does, and drew the attention of attendees – some bold enough to ask for a photo, others content to stand back and stare.

This is one of Johnson’s favorite days of the year, he said. The encouragement from the cheering crowd, he said, is unlike anything else.

“It’s fun to see the love, the laughter, the music and the joy,” Johnson said. “The place is screaming.”

Johnson and his colleagues were among the 180 groups Saturday in this year’s Indy Pride Parade along Mass Ave, which was followed by a Pride festival in Military Park. The day saw Hoosiers of all ages line the streets and pack the park in colorful attire to celebrate the local LGBTQ community.

The parade route stretched around half a mile down Mass Ave and ran for two hours, helmed by grand marshals Parents of Trans Youth and David Hochoy, who’s set to retire after 32 years as artistic director at Dance Kaleidoscope in Indianapolis. Adding to around 180 parade participants were more than 30 drag performers, DJs and other artists on stage at the festival – a packed lineup headlined by rapper Saucy Santana.

Shelly Snider, executive director of Indy Pride, said organizing a schedule of that caliber was a massive undertaking. But, she added, it was one that was ultimately worth the work – especially with the outpouring of support from volunteers and the community at large.

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Indy Pride has skyrocketed from its humble beginnings as a one-float parade to a day that draws tens of thousands of attendees each year. The growth, Snider said, means the Indy Pride organization is doing something right.

“The streets were just lined with happy, happy people,” Snider said, “which is a good sign for us.”

Last year, Indy Pride scanned 35,000 tickets at its festival and hosted 60,000 people at the parade. The organization scanned an estimated 25,000 tickets by 1:30 p.m. this year, not even a quarter of the way through the 12-hour event.

And if the surge of people toward Military Park is any indication, the numbers should only go up from there. Even in the early hours of the festival, groups of people dotted the grassy fields, lines for various food trucks stretched through the grounds and a small crowd had already gathered at the front of the Main Stage.

The day drew a mix of longtime Pride attendees like Johnson and newcomers like Austen Leak, 33, and Marissa Schmidter, 27. The two traveled an hour north from Terre Haute for their first Indy Pride and were among those taking in the festival sights and sounds.

But their attendance meant more than just leisure, Leak said. In a time fraught with uncertainty for the LGBTQ community, he said he felt it important to show up in solidarity with his friends who identify as LGBTQ.

“I just want everybody – no matter what they do, what they believe in, what they want to do – I just want them all to feel safe.”

This year’s state legislative session produced more than 20 bills addressing topics like gender-affirming care and school curricula – triple what the highest other years have yielded. Events like Pride, Schmidter said, are encouraging amid such measures and attitudes.

“It’s amazing we can have something like this,” Schmidter said, “even in a state that’s so red.”

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Pride events have long served as a beacon of hope for Joshua Peaslee, a 38-year-old Indianapolis resident. Spaces that celebrated his identity helped him through his youth in southern Indiana, where he said visibility for members of the LGBTQ community is “nonexistent.”

The dialogue surrounding LGBTQ rights – unprecedented legislation, rising animosity and lingering fears – concerns Peaslee, and he fears for future generation that may experience the struggle he did when was young. But events like Indy Pride remind Peaslee that positive change is possible.

“You question, ‘Is there a place for me?’,” he said. “Events like this are important in that it shows another option to despair.”

Contact Pulliam Fellow Heather Bushman at HBushman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Hoosiers celebrate Indy Pride 2023