Pride in Acadiana: From Drag Queen Storytime to a celebration with a parade
Acceptance has come inch by inch over decades for Lafayette’s LGBTQ+ community, with vocal pushback in recent years. But on Saturday, the community gained a mile as the city hosted its first Pride parade in downtown Lafayette.
“It's very humbling to hear and see all of the support from downtown and other areas in the city,” activist Matt Humphrey said. “And just not feel alone (but) feel represented.”
Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette hosted a mile-long Pride parade Saturday morning, celebrating the history, visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. The day-long, all-ages event featured live performances and activities.
Pride Acadiana: Watch the parade, see live performances at all-ages event
The celebration has evolved from a sparse social network centered around Bolt, the town’s primary gay nightclub, and Acadiana Cares, an HIV-oriented sexual health clinic, to now feature advocacy groups like Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Lafayette and the Acadiana Queer Collective, which organized Saturday’s Pride event.
That evolution expanded beyond the LGBTQ+ community and into the realm of political support with the Lafayette City Council’s proclamation of June as Pride Month in 2021 after the former Lafayette City-Parish Council fell two votes short of that recognition in 2019.
A 2022 proclamation has not yet been passed.
Everyone Pride Acadiana organizer Brandi Ortiz has talked to has been supportive, she said. It’s made her consider whether the feeling of being ostracized isn’t as pervasive in Acadiana.
“Honestly, it leaves me a little bit speechless. When we started talking about doing this, we would quip a little bit off-hand like, ‘oh, okay, get ready for the backlash’ or ‘get ready for the community to stand against it,’” she said.
“What we found is very much the opposite. So much of the community is so supportive from the police officers who are doing security to the business owners downtown, to the amount of monetary support and donations that we've got from corporations around town.”
What is the history behind Pride Month?How the LGBTQ celebration came to be
But it isn’t always rainbows and progress for the LGBTQ+ community. Lafayette residents, including Humphrey, had to fight in 2018 to host Drag Queen Storytime, designed to teach children the importance of respecting others' differences, at the library. The event was allowed after a lawsuit filed by two religious groups seeking to prevent it was dismissed by a federal judge.
Last week, the Lafayette Parish Public Library said it won’t put up book displays on subjects it deems too “political,” including displays centering on Cajun & Creole culture, religious holidays and other group-specific topics.
Background: Lafayette library's stop to 'political' displays criticized by local advocacy groups
Previously the library system would highlight celebrations like Pride Month, which began June 1, or Black History Month, which occurs in February, with displays of prominent books on those subjects at some of its locations. The books will still be available for checkout.
This week, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards refused to veto a bill that bars transgender athletes from participating in girls and women’s sports.
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Despite the setbacks and the threats to LGBTQ+ rights, Saturday will be a time to celebrate, said Humphrey, who is the president of PFLAG.
“Those folks that are barking about how mad they are about it can just stay mad, because this is our day, it's our month,” he said.
“We have fought long and hard, not just here but all over, to feel proud as a community. And I'm very excited for Lafayette Pride as a community to be this spectacular event that I hear it's going to be.”
Beyond being a celebration, Pride Acadiana is meant to feel welcoming and let LGBTQ+ youth feel supported, Ortiz said. A 2022 national survey on LGBTQ+ youth mental health by the Trevor Project found 45% of LGBTQ+ youth considered attempting suicide in the past year.
But those who felt high social support from their family reported attempting suicide at less than half the rate of those who felt low or moderate social support.
‘It’s hard for anybody to be gay’: Mr. Pride Acadiana wants to inspire courage, joy
Growing up, Ortiz felt her sexuality was a secret she had to keep.
“Had I had an experience where I'd seen a large group of accepting adults, I think it really would have made a lot of the struggles that I had growing up maybe seem a little less overwhelming,” she said.
“There are people like us everywhere. We're business owners, we’re parents, and to see that you can grow up and not have to feel the need to keep it a secret from somebody is so important.”
Humphrey, who grew up in Iota, looked to Lafayette as a safe place. But when he moved to the city at 17, he found that it wasn’t. But he’s decided to stay here and has made it his mission to make Lafayette feel like the safe space for LGBTQ+ youth that he wanted it to be when he was younger.
“They're really the only thing that matters,” he said. “We want for these young people to feel loved and accepted, and not just tolerated. And we want them to feel celebrated and valid.”
Contact Ashley White at adwhite@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @AshleyyDi.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Pride in Acadiana has gone from Drag Queen Storytime pushback to parade
