Lebanon's first-ever Pride festival will go all-out: 'It couldn't be quiet and small'

LEBANON, Ohio – James Reynolds once described Lebanon as a place where a Pride event would draw more protesters than attendees. Now, days away from hosting the city's first-ever Pride festival, he says he feels differently.

"You are going to have your loud people who are anti, but that is not the majority," he said.

Reynolds grew up in Lebanon and moved out of the city to attend college in 2000. He now lives and runs an art business, Not Your Average Paint & Sip, in downtown Cincinnati.

He and a friend, Brooke Handley, teamed up to organize Lebanon's first Pride festival, which will be held July 20 on Mulberry Street.

There were critics at first, most of whom attacked the group on social media, Reynolds said.

"What we are finding is those are just the loud people that are not necessarily reflective of the population," he said.

Supporters, however, spoke with their credit cards. Organizers surpassed their fundraising goal of $50,000, drawn mostly from locals or people with Lebanon ties.

Lebanon, a city of roughly 21,000, is staunchly Republican: Then-President Donald Trump drew twice as many votes as Democrat Joe Biden there in 2020.

"While many of our residents may not favor this event, we recognize the importance of our constitutional protections," Lebanon Mayor Mark Messer wrote in a statement to The Enquirer. "Let me be clear: We value Liberty, Virtue, and Faith. We live these values daily, and an event we might disagree with will not change that."

Pride celebrations were quietly happening

Reynolds describes growing up in Lebanon as quiet and boring, since he wasn't interested in the city's popular activities, such as playing sports. He didn't come to terms with his sexuality, or come out as gay, until college.

"I didn't really understand that (being gay) was a fully realized option because here people didn't talk about that," he said. "We didn't have noticeable, obvious gay-anything happening. The only time you heard people talk about it was somebody yelling (a gay slur) out of their car at somebody."

Pride events were quietly happening, though. Angela Kovacich, owner of Lebanon's Mulberry St. Books and Reynolds' friend, held small, June get-togethers for LGBTQ+ residents and allies for years.

"What Lebanon was lacking was a social network so people could find each other in a more organic way than just a big gay meetup or something," Reynolds said.

He wanted the city's first official Pride event to be different.

"What we really wanted was a level of visibility that would make people proud, and that meant we had to go with the big platform," he said. "It couldn't be quiet and small."

Getting Lebanon-based allies, and even those who identify as LGBTQ+, to openly support the event was slow-going.

Older LGBTQ+ residents had become used to the norm that their community wasn't openly talked about, Reynolds said. Business owners from other cities or Lebanon newcomers, however, joined in more quickly.

"It was kind of hard to get the first group of businesses involved," Reynolds said. "It's definitely a place you can get blacklisted if you're not politically aligned with people."

Lebanon voters elected their first openly gay council member, Krista Wyatt, who may have also been the first gay elected official in Warren County, in 2017. The city's high school has a Gender-Sexuality Alliance club dedicated to LGBTQ+ teens and allies.

But the quaint seat of Republican-controlled Warren County is known nationally for its conservative values. In 2021, Lebanon's city council banned abortion, then doubled down on their stance after Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights last year.

The county was thrust into the national spotlight for issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community in 2014 when Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager who lived in Kings Mills, died by suicide.

"The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights," Alcorn, a student at Kings Local School District, wrote in a suicide note posted on Tumblr.

As an outsider who grew up in Lebanon, Reynolds felt uniquely positioned to lead the charge for city's first-ever Pride.

"I have kind of an invincibility because I do not live here and my business is not located here," he said.

Under threat of statewide ban, festival will feature drag queens

Lebanon Pride will have local entertainers, music, dance troops, a kids' zone, food trucks, three different brewery vendors and LGBTQ+ resource groups onsite, which organizers were able to book by hosting the festival in July rather than June.

The festival will also have multiple drag performances, according to its online agenda.

At the beginning of June, ahead of weeks of Pride events, Ohio state legislators held a hearing on a bill that would restrict drag shows. The bill would criminalize performances in front of children that are considered obscene and feature entertainers displaying a gender identity different than their gender assigned at birth.

State lawmakers won't revisit the bill until after summer session. Cincinnati Pride and other cities' celebrations featured drag performances as usual.

Lebanon Pride organizers worried city council might ban drag shows, like they banned abortion three years ago.

"If you actually know anything about drag queens, these people are wearing couch cushions as padding under three layers of tights," Reynolds said. "You're never gonna see a thigh much less genitalia. But if you go to (Lebanon's) Country Music Festival, you're gonna see a lot of daisy dukes."

Emails obtained by The Enquirer did not show council members opposed Lebanon Pride or planned to ban drag shows.

In an email to The Enquirer, Messer, the mayor, said he wouldn't speak for the council on hypothetical legislation.

"However, I question why adult entertainment is the centerpiece of a family-friendly festival," he wrote. "We can all agree that sexualized, pornographic, and obscene performances in a public forum are inappropriate, especially when marketed to families."

Lebanon Pride intends to stick around

To continue to host Lebanon Pride, organizers will have to get approval from the city's council-appointed Board of Festivals and Tourism, like they did for the event this year, for two more years, Reynolds said. After that, Pride will be an established event and won't have to seek board approval.

Organizers turned to Lebanon residents for fundraising, but they also gave back. Since first applying for the permits to hold the festival in early 2023, the group has volunteered in the community at food banks and local parks, and hosts monthly get-togethers.

By establishing itself within Lebanon, Reynolds hope to build "something sustainable" that will return year after year.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Lebanon to host first-ever Pride festival