As Greater Palm Springs gets ready to celebrate Pride, many U.S. festivals focus on political resistance

With marriage equality now a national right, transgender issues gaining visibility, and several pockets of the United States becoming progressive on LGBTQ rights, more communities are celebrating Pride or changing how they demonstrate it. This year, in the Coachella Valley alone, Pride festivities doubled.

Joining the annual Greater Palm Springs Pride celebration and Cathedral City LGBT Days are community events in the cities of Coachella and Desert Hot Springs. The first eastern Coachella Valley Pride celebration, including a parade, took place in early May. It was largely organized by young LGBTQ desert residents and drew hundreds of supporters. And the inaugural DiversityDHS Pride Festival is planned for Nov. 18, following Palm Springs’ mammoth downtown festivities on Nov. 4 and 5.

For many, the growth in Pride events can be traced back to the Obama Administration, which championed the LGBTQ community more than any other U.S. president’s administration in history. It was President Obama who ushered in the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, announced his eventual support for same-sex marriage, and frequently referenced in his speeches LGBTQ folks with other American citizens. These and other signs of support likely strengthened the foundation on which to build LGBTQ equality and celebrations.

Read more: First east valley pride parade helps LGBT 'walk as who we are'

Read more: Not far from gay-friendly Palm Springs, LGBTQ teens fight for acceptance

Since the presidential election of Donald Trump, however, the emphasis has shifted a bit from celebratory Pride to protest Pride. Resistance, in response to what many perceive to be the Trump administration’s threats to LGBTQ equality, was a common theme at festivals in June, National Pride Month. More than 50 U.S. communities participated on June 11 in an Equality March for Unity and Pride, including Palm Springs. Los Angeles Pride went a step further than most, replacing its traditional Pride parade with a Resist March.

In the valley the motivation for adding Pride events seems to fall between celebrating and demonstrating. It’s closer to a party with purpose as organizers set out to create opportunities to educate the general population on LGBTQ issues and to invite the public to celebrate the progress of equality since the Stonewall riots of 1969. That’s a significant leap from the first Palm Springs Pride event in 1986 when it was presented as Sizzle, a talent showcase. While it continues to present entertainment stages featuring hot national to local acts, the festival has grown under the direction of Greater Palm Springs Pride President Ron deHarte to become one of the largest free Prides in California. And each year it transforms downtown Palm Springs into a central hub where residents and visitors can educate themselves about the work of the Human Rights Campaign, Equality California, PFLAG, Desert Stonewall Democrats and Desert AIDS Project, among other advocacy and service groups.

Education was on the minds of a group of Desert Hot Springs residents who more than a year ago came together to establish the city’s Pride festival.

“Having been active with many organizations in our city, Floyd Barten felt there was a gap for the LGBT community in the city,” says Sam Messler, DiversityDHS president. Pride hasn’t been hosted north of Interstate 10, so the idea appealed to the group when it came up during a brainstorming session, he adds.

DiversityDHS was born, with inclusion as a main objective. “This group was not to be solely consisting of those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender,” Messler says, “but rather of an organization made up of people from a variety of backgrounds who believe the best way to an understanding of those who are LGBT and all people is through education.”

The support of Mayor Scott Matas and the Desert Hot Springs City Council for the LGBTQ community is one indicator the city is ready for its own Pride, according to Messler. “We have an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 citizens in our city who identify as LGBT,” he says. Part of the mission of Pride is to raise awareness about this and other diverse segments of the city’s population, as well as other positive happenings there.

“Our name is DiversityDHS which we live up to daily in speaking to organizations and people of all backgrounds,” Messler says. “The Desert Hot Springs Pride Festival will be a free family event, including fun activities for children. In fact, living up to our name, we are proud to have non-gay community leaders on our board of directors.”

The festival is expected to have more than 30 booths for people to visit; they’ll consist of organizations and retailers from Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs and Cathedral City. There also will be entertainers on a covered stage, food trucks, beer and wine concessions, medical testing services, an interactive police van and more. However, having a Desert Hot Springs event doesn’t preclude participation in Greater Palm Springs Pride a couple of weeks prior.

Last year Desert Hot Springs had a strong contingent in the Palm Springs parade, including three vehicles that carried the mayor and city council, along with dozens of walkers. DiversityDHS members also plan to be there this year with a booth promoting their festival.

Earlier this year, a new approach to Pride also popped up in Coachella. Unlike Greater Palm Springs and Cathedral City festivities, as well as Palm Springs Leather Pride coming up in late October, the eastern valley festival was organized by a group of desert students. One of its objectives was to broaden family and community support for coming out. Another was to work alongside western valley-based organizations to help foster LGBTQ awareness and acceptance in Thermal, Mecca, North Shore, Indio and Coachella.

Sahara Huazano, project manager at Building Healthy Communities in Coachella, was instrumental in helping to launch the east valley celebration in the spring. It was made possible through a two-year grant from The California Endowment to conduct an LGBTQ Youth Health Assessment. “The first year was to work with a group of youth through outreach of [Gay Straight Alliances] in local high schools,” she says, “and teaching them how to research and using it as an advocacy tool, and how to take action.”

The group of students created a survey through Survey Monkey, an online survey site, and with the support of teachers got more than 600 students to respond to it. Their intention was to use the information to advocate for establishing an LGBT center in Coachella.

“Wanting something immediate, the youth suggested that the next best idea was to put together a Pride event with a planning committee comprised of organizations,” Huazano says.

To bring it to fruition, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, The LGBT Community Center of the Desert, and Trans Community Project to be a part of the planning. “It was really fun, nerve-wrecking, but an experience for youth to organize a Pride festival and feel incredibly proud to do something feasible for their community,” Huazano says, “as well as an event like this in their community that they never thought in their lifetime would happen, a sentiment they shared with the planning committee.”

Eastern valley Pride attendance likely was somewhere between 500 and 1,000, based on students who were counting attendees throughout the day. The majority of those were eastern valley residents, something the organizers were proud to see. They also were proud of the event vibe — a sort of bridge-building between the east and west sides of the valley.

“ECV Pride offers a space where local youth from our community take leadership to plan a community event with the purpose of bringing awareness and temporary resources to ... support the LGBTQ community and their family members in the eastern Coachella Valley.” Huazano says. It also “provides an opportunity for organizations from western Coachella Valley to get to know the needs of ECV community. ECV Pride is a multi-language event open to all cultures including the Latino American countries and undocumented LGBTQ+.”

The expansion of Pride across the valley reflects overall positive change, says deHarte of Greater Palm Springs Pride. “We are seeing more acceptance, more willingness to raise awareness, and for younger folks, families are becoming more accepting, friends are becoming more supportive,” he adds. “It might not be a cultural shift, but a glimmer of hope and that’s a good thing.”

If you go

Greater Palm Springs Pride Festival and Parade, Nov. 4-5, PSPride.org.

DiversityDHS Pride Festival, Nov. 18, DiversityDHS.com.

Cathedral City LGBT Days, March 30 – April 1, 2018, CathedralCityLGBTDays.com.

Eastern Coachella Valley Pride Festival, April 7, 2018, BHCCoachellaValley.org.