Denver's PrideFest celebrates 50th anniversary
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The Denver Pride Parade in June 2023. Photo: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Phil Nash bore witness to the progress and setbacks the LGBTQ community has made over the last 50 years — so much so, he decided to write a book about it.
Why it matters: Titled "LGBTQ Denver," it chronicles the community's history, including its activism and cultural contributions. It boasts nearly 200 photos.
Driving the news: The book's release came months before the 2024 Denver PrideFest which starts Saturday with a Pride 5K, followed by a festival at Civic Center Park and a parade Sunday down 14 blocks of Colfax Avenue.
Zoom in: Nash, who helped establish The Center on Colfax, an organization supporting the LGBTQ community, spent decades as an AIDS advocate and organizer.
- "We've seen Denver transform from a city that was mostly in the closet to being one that now has one of the largest pride celebrations in the country," Nash tells us.
- Organizers are expecting 500,000 people to attend this year's event.
Context: Growing up in the 1950s and '60s, Nash, who's lived in Denver since 1976, says gay people like himself endured the wrongful stigma of being sick, sinful, and even acting illegally simply for their sexual orientation.
- The tide shifted in the 1970s, he says, as more people, especially young folks, felt more comfortable living their authentic lives.
Friction point: Nash says then-President Ronald Reagan largely ignored the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and it took the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a discriminatory law in Colorado passed by voters targeting gay people in 1996.
Fun fact: This year's celebration marks PrideFest's 50th anniversary, and organizers are focusing on sustainability by encouraging recycling, and accessibility by providing ASL interpretations, Rex Fuller, CEO of The Center on Colfax, which organizes the event, tells us.
- Fuller says every year, he feels especially inspired when he stops to consider that the event could be somebody's first pride festival.
- The parade's grand marshal will be Christie Lane, a drag performer whom Fuller tells us applied for the first pride parade permit five decades ago
Between the lines: The festivities arrive as anti-LGBTQ legislation passed this year fell nationwide, a year after seeing a boom in 2023, Axios' April Rubin writes.
- "This is an important time to be reassured," Fuller tells us, saying he's especially alarmed by the rise in anti-trans rhetoric.
The bottom line: Nash says Pride festivals and parades welcome all people, including straight folks, into a community where everyone can be celebrated for being themselves.
- "You don't have to be LGBTQ to benefit from it," he says.