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🌈 Taking pride in Pride
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🌈 Taking pride in Pride

RAINBOW CONNECTION: Happy Pride Month, all.

A SHORT HISTORY OF SEATTLE PRIDE

Seattle celebrated our very first Pride Week in 1974 —  five years after trans and gay rights activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, among others, led the Stonewall riots in New York City and helped spark the fight for LGBTQ+ equality. Although Seattle’s first Pride celebration was small, it was early, happening four years after inaugural Pride marches in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Our city’s Pride March has come a long way, from a small group of pioneers to a massive parade that draws in thousands of people. And though there’s plenty of work left to do, our city’s made some serious progress in the last half-century.

FIRST PRIDE WEEK – 1974: Seattle gay rights activist David Neth takes the lead organizing Seattle’s first Pride Week. The week ends at Seattle Center where “fewer than 50 happy gay individuals—including a bare-chested Neth, draped in pearls, wearing cutoffs and a white floppy hat–danced with frenzied joy around the International Fountain,” Seattle Weekly reports.

FIRST OFFICIAL PRIDE WEEK – 1977: Mayor Wes Uhlman declares the first city-sanctioned Gay Pride Week, which culminates in Seattle’s first official Pride March. This is just one year before Seattle voters defeat a bill that would’ve stripped LGBTQ+ people of equal housing and employment rights.

LET IT FLY – 2010: The Space Needle flies the rainbow Pride flag for the first time ever.

FIRST TRANS PRIDE – 2013: Gender Justice League organizes Seattle’s first Trans Pride Parade in Capitol Hill. Hundreds of locals rallied at Seattle Central Community College and marched around Cal Anderson Park in support of our transgender, intersex, and non-binary neighbors. This year’s celebration also the first Pride to be held since Washington State legalized gay marriage in 2012.

AN EXTRA SPECIAL PRIDE – 2015: It’s the first Pride since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the country.

AND HERE WE ARE: This year’s Seattle Pride Parade kicks off at 11 a.m. on Sunday at Fourth Avenue & Union Street and will travel to the PrideFest rally and party in Seattle Center. This year’s theme is Pride Beyond Borders, which Seattle Pride President Kevin Toovey says is “a reminder that we can celebrate all the successes and strides of our history, but there is work to be done to keep our communities free, happy, and safe.”

Happy Pride, Seattle. ❤

Learn more about Seattle’s LGBTQ+ history here, here, and here. Want to join in on the Pride festivities? Check out The Stranger’s massive roundup of Pride events. And if you’re planning to celebrate, be sure to tag #theevergrey on Instagram.

NOW HERE'S WHAT'S GOING ON IN YOUR CITY

45,000 people. That’s about how many newcomers moved to our city each year between 2012 and 2016, and it’s just about enough folks to fill up Safeco Field. ⚾ FYI Guy Gene Balk broke down some census data to show who these new neighbors are. The highlights? Fifty-five percent are millennials, almost half made six-figure household incomes in 2016, and 90 percent of them do not work in Seattle’s go-to growth industry — tech. (The Seattle Times)

Goo be gone. If you pay to park on Seattle streets then you’ve probably had to deal with those pesky parking stickers. You gotta print ‘em, stick ‘em on the inside window of your car, and then remember to peel them off later before their sticker goo adheres to the glass forever. But good news: Our city council could vote as soon as Monday to replace the stickers with a system where you’d just punch in your license plate number. (MyNorthwest)

Hell Mouth, huh? Can you visit the Liminal Seattle website without sticking around a while? Writer Paul Constant doesn’t think so. “I defy you to maintain self-control,” Paul wrote about one of the more fascinating things we’ve seen online all year — a crowdsourced map of bizarre, spooky, and just plain weird Seattle stories. “I think this timeline/reality is so awful right now in so many ways that people are really looking for new mythologies,” cofounder Jeremy Puma told Paul. Want to add some strange encounter to this search for local paranormal hotspots? The map is always taking submissions. (Seattle Review of Books)

‘That one DJ.’ The Stranger is out with its annual Queer Issue, and this year’s theme is about the people who’ve changed contributing writers’ lives. “That One Parent” is about coming out to a traditional Chinese family. “That One Spouse” is about what happens when someone you marry tells you they’re trans. And “That One DJ” is about DJ Riz, whose sets at Re-bar in the 1990s made the place a “cultural laboratory for the creation of a brand-new race of Seattleites.” (The Stranger)

PARTNER EVENTS

🍻  Tuesday, June 26: Hang out with fellow readers of The Evergrey and Seattle magazine at Seapine Brewing Company for good beer, good company, and craft brew trivia with WashingtonBeerBlog’s Kendall Jones (SoDo)

⚡  Wednesday, June 27: Get tips on how to break through barriers in innovation at this Impact Hub Lunch + Learn (Pioneer Square)

Want to partner on your event with us? Here’s how.

AROUND TOWN

TODAY

🎶  Sway to global tunes on the first official day of summer (Downtown)
🎟  Blush at a “steamy oasis”-themed burlesque show — through June 24 (Downtown)
🍿  Talk tentacles at Cephalopod Movie Night (Queen Anne) — use promo code EVERGREY for a discount!


TOMORROW

🍴  Fill up on tasty bites and check out cool art (Tacoma)
🍷  Sip vino while wandering around the East Side (Kirkland)
🌈  Kick off Pride weekend with fellow trans and non-binary Seattleites (Capitol Hill)


SATURDAY

🏞  Ride your bike through the countryside (Carnation)
🍴  Check out the Shake Shack pop-up at Canlis (Queen Anne)
👋  Sniff your way through your neighbors’ gardens (West Seattle)
🌈 Celebrate Pride with a march, cupcakes, and “doggie drag” (Capitol Hill)


SUNDAY

🏞  Compete in a strawberry shortcake eating contest (Bellevue)
🎈  Take the family to dance and make (or buy) local art (Shoreline)
🌈  Cheer on your neighbors marching in the Pride Parade (Downtown, Queen Anne)
🎈  Celebrate our region’s slugs at “the most unusual Northwest Festival ever” (Eatonville)


Going to one of these? Take us with you! Email a pic to [email protected] or tag #theevergrey on Instagram. See more upcoming events on our events page, and add your own events with an Evergrey membership.

THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

For sharing out The Evergrey with at least one new subscriber (thank you!), reader Susan Feeney won a free newsletter ad spot (the one with the * up top 👆) to promote something local she loves. Susan picked French Cider, she told us, because it’s “a dear friend’s cool startup.” 🙌

Cheers, all. — The Evergrey

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