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Seattle Guide to Pride

Check out our Instagram post to see the full list.

We’ve told you what you need to know about Pride in our newsletter headlines, but this is where the fun kicks in. There are too many events to count this month, but we can give you a quick run through of what’s come across our radar in the form of parades, fundraisers, dance parties and history tours. Let’s check it out: 

🚲 Ride the rainbow at the Cascade’s Bicycle Club Queer History Bike Tour. The course will take you to Seattle sites that are important to local LGBTQIA+ history. It costs $35 and includes two tickets to MoPOP that can be redeemed through Labor Day! (June 12)

🏳🌈 Play TRINGO (trivia + bingo) at Snapshot Brewing and funds from the event will go towards the Lavender Rights Project, a local nonprofit providing social and legal advocacy for Black gender diverse people across Washington. (Every Wednesday in June)

💃 Head over to Rhein Haus for a big Pride party all weekend long. There will be music from R&B singer-songwriter Keri Hilson and drag performances by nine queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Take a peek at their preview video for the event, and you’ll get a sense of all the fun and flirty festivities in store. You can buy your tickets here. (June 25 and June 26)

🌈 Check out Take B(l)ack Pride, an event that centers Transgender and Queer Black, Indigenous, and POC community members and was put together by local organizers who were a part of the 2020 BLM protests. This year’s theme is Seachella and they’ll be holding the event at the Mural Amphitheater with QTBIPOC performers from all across North America, vendors, kids and family activities and a whole lot more! (June 25)

Check out more of the dozens of Pride activities happening this month on our Instagram or with this guide from Seattle Met.

Pride in the headlines

🌈 For some people who came out during the past two years, finding a queer community has been especially difficult. This is the first in-person Pride that many people can celebrate, having missed out on two years of canceled events due to COVID. The Seattle Times shares the stories of queer folks who came out during the pandemic and asks them how they’re feeling about their first Pride-filled summer. Head to the link to read their stories. → (Seattle Times)

⛔ Some local Pride events are asking the SPD to “stay away.” Leaders at the annual PrideFest at Seattle Center and Capitol Hill want the police to stay off festival grounds. They said the SPD hasn’t done enough to hold officers who used excessive force during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests accountable and asks that any officers present at the event stay at its perimeters in order to limit engagement with attendees. Organizers of the Seattle Pride march have also asked that any officers who join the event not wear their uniform. (Axios)

💃 Sapphic Seattle has quickly become a big name in local LGBTQ+ nightlife. The group organizes events for young people who identify as lesbian, queer women, trans or nonbinary at venues all around the city, with performances exclusively from queer folks. As the number of lesbian nightlife spaces has shrunk over recent years (Seattle has one of the just three remaining lesbian bars on the West Coast), their work has become increasingly important and massively popular, especially on TikTok. The group’s name comes from the figure Sappho, an ancient Greek poet from the isle of Lesbos who was known for writing romantic poems to women. (Seattle Times)

🏫 Two weeks ago, SPU started holding a sit-in as a response to the school’s discriminatory practices against queer faculty and staff. Those involved in the movement say they’ve received plenty of support from faculty, alumni and local businesses, but until certain members of SPU’s board of trustees step down, they don’t believe anything will change. Students are also calling for the school to drop their affiliation with the Free Methodist Church, whose views the school has used as a way to justify their decisions. (King 5)

🌈 Amazon is no longer the sponsor of this year’s Seattle Pride march. The company had originally planned to donate $100,000 to Seattle Pride, in exchange for a level of publicity unlike any year before  — its logo would need to be on all volunteers’ shirts and displayed along the route, and a company rep would be given time to deliver a speech during the march. When Pride board of directors found out Amazon gave $450,000 to homophobic politicians in the 2020 election cycle, they decided to remove the sponsorship. Future corporate sponsors for the Seattle Pride march will have to “demonstrate that they don’t work against the LGBTQ+ community during the rest of the year.” FYI: this news came out in March, but it’s worth a read to see how Pride events are evolving. (The Stranger).

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