Phoenix Pride (formerly known as Phoenix Pride March & Rally, Desert Pride, Arizona Central Pride, and Phoenix Pride Festival) is a

parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually some variety ...

and festival held each year in Phoenix, Arizona to celebrate the lesbian, gay,

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

, and

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

(

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

) people and their allies. Unlike other pride parades in major US cities, which is held in June to commemorate the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

, Phoenix Pride has been held outside of the summer months in Arizona since at least 2004, due to high summer temperatures.

History

Phoenix has had a history of hosting

gay pride In the context of LGBTQ culture, pride (also known as LGBTQ pride, LGBTQIA pride, LGBT pride, queer pride, gay pride, or gay and lesbian pride) is the promotion of the rights, self-affirmation, dignity, Social equality, equality, and increas ...

-themed events even before the first pride parade was held in 1981. In June 1977, the first gay pride week was organized in Phoenix by the city’s LGBTQ+ community at the time. The first pride parade in Phoenix took place in 1981, and it was organized by the Lesbian & Gay Pride Planning Committee, which was led by Kirk Baxter and BJ Bud. The first parade was a march from Patriots Square Park (now the site of

CityScape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

) to the

Arizona State Capitol The Arizona Territorial - Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, was the last home for Arizona's territorial government until Arizona became a state in 1912. Initially, all three branches of the new state government occupied ...

. The event was a politically focused march that aimed to bring awareness to

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

issues in the Phoenix area. Newspaper reports at the time estimated 600 to 1,000 people attended the evening march, although later research has put the figure to over 700 people having taken part. From 1983 to 1985, the march took place on a portion of Phoenix's

Central Avenue Corridor The Central Avenue Corridor is a significant stretch of north–south Central Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona. Roughly bounded by Camelback Road to its north, and McDowell Road to its south, this is one of Phoenix's most vital and heavily trafficke ...

, and the event in 1987 became politically focused once again, as it was combined with an event aimed at recalling controversial

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Evan Mecham Evan Mecham ( ; May 12, 1924 – February 21, 2008) was an American businessman and the List of governors of Arizona, 17th governor of Arizona, serving from January 5, 1987, until his Impeachment by state and territorial governments of the United ...

. A non-profit organization was established to coordinate the pride festival in 1991. That same year, after a decade of hosting the event in Phoenix, the pride festival was moved to Tempe Diablo Stadium. The event was moved to Margaret T. Hance Park in Phoenix in 1998, and moved to

Steele Indian School Park Steele Indian School Park is located on the northeast corner of Indian School Road and Central Avenue Corridor, Central Avenue in Encanto, Phoenix, Encanto Village, Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona. Geography Indian School Road, on which the f ...

in 2003, where it is still being held to this day. In 2020, the parade and festival was impacted by the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, with event organizers saying they will reschedule the event to a time during the fall. Days after the announcement to postpone was made, organizers announced an alternative date of November 7 and 8. 2020's parade was later rescheduled to 2021, in effect cancelling Phoenix Pride for 2020.

Event by year

Immigrant Rights Protesters at Phoenix Pride 2017-1

Criticism

Activists who disrupted 2017's pride parade have criticized Phoenix Pride as being overly commercialized, in its present form, and accused organizers of straying from its original theme of standing up for the rights of people. Similar criticisms have been leveled against other pride parades around the country.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Pride parades 1981 establishments in Arizona Annual events in Arizona Festivals in Phoenix, Arizona Pride parades in Arizona Recurring events established in 1981