It's Pride time, Cleveland
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The Main Stage at Pride in the CLE 2025. Photo: Aerial Agents, courtesy of the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland
Cleveland's biggest Pride celebration returns Saturday, with more than 25,000 attendees and 12,000 marchers expected downtown.
Why it matters: Pride in the CLE is one of Ohio's largest LGBTQ+ gatherings. Organizers with the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland say this year's event arrives amid renewed political and cultural attacks on LGBTQ+ communities.
What they're saying: "Pride in the CLE is more than a celebration. It is a declaration of presence in a moment when LGBTQ+ people are being pushed to the margins through policy, rhetoric, and deliberate erasure," the Center's managing director Gulnar Feerasta wrote in the event guide.
- "Our joy is not incidental. It is how we survive and how we move forward."
Driving the news: The annual march steps off from Public Square at 11am before winding through downtown and ending at the festival grounds on Malls B and C.
- The free event includes live entertainment across multiple stages, more than 150 vendors and community organizations, food trucks, family activities and health and wellness resources.
Zoom out: The Buckeye Flame has published an annual Ohio Pride Guide listing more than 150 Pride events statewide this year. It's the largest number since the local publication began tracking them five years ago.
Between the lines: Editor Ken Schneck tells Axios that alongside major celebrations in Cleveland, Columbus and Akron, smaller first-time and rural Pride events are flourishing across Ohio.
The last word: "With over a dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills currently up for consideration in the Ohio Statehouse, the need for Ohio's LGBTQ+ community to gather, be seen and be strong is as needed as it has ever been," he says.
Go deeper: Equality Ohio rolls out statewide plan amid mounting LGBTQ+ challenges