Thousands turned out in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday to celebrate Pride, an annual event steeped in the advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and visibility.
Organized by Indy Pride, the weekend includes a parade, festival with music and entertainment and a market with queer artists to sell their work.
The festivities came on the heels of Gov. Mike Braun's proclamation declaring June “nuclear family month” — issued on the first day of Pride Month — and a wave of state and federal actions that have restricted how transgender Hoosiers can identify on official documents.
Colorful floats rolled down a portion of Mass Ave. Saturday morning. Businesses, organizations, politicians, bands and Indianapolis city departments walked the roughly one-mile parade route. Pride flags, flowers, beads, candy and more were handed out to spectators.
Rachel Susong, wore a pride flag as a cape, with stickers on her face, taking in all the excitement.
“I showed up an hour ago with no pride merch on me whatsoever,” Susong said. “This is what I look like now, because, and I haven’t spent a single dime, because people were like, ‘I love you, and you deserve to have this,’ and I just love celebrating queer joy, and it just makes me so happy.”
Susong came to the parade with Malorie Fouch and Ara Adams. The three describe the weekend as a place of community.
“For me, growing up where I did, about an hour up north, it was definitely a little bit harder growing up queer, but like being here at Indy, especially celebrating Indy Pride, shows so much community and so much love,” Fouch said.
Adams said the sense of isolation that comes with being queer in Indiana made the weekend feel that much more meaningful.
“Sometimes, in such a red state, it feels so isolating to be queer, but being here reminds you, like, you have so many queer peers around you, and it’s just like the sense of community just means so much to me,” Adams said.
Transgender and nonbinary Indiana residents have faced new restrictions on their official identification. They are no longer able to update gender markers on U.S. passports, instead requiring the sex assigned at birth.
Braun is directing state agencies to treat gender and sex as identical. In February, the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles stopped allowing people to change their gender marker on driver’s licenses and state IDs.
The state’s attorney general has gone further, seeking to reopen sealed and closed court cases to reverse judges’ orders allowing transgender Hoosiers to update their birth certificates.
Some elected officials walked in the parade, including Indiana State Sen. J.D. Ford (D-District 29) and Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears.
Kirsten Root, Democratic candidate for Indiana Senate District 21, participated in the parade. Root, who is bisexual, said events like these are essential.
“I think it’s a very purposeful attack on the LGBT community,” Root said. “We need to continue to celebrate people just living their lives and being good people in the community. It is so important to celebrate people who have given up their time, their lives to have as much freedom as we have now.”
Michael Spoonamore, who is gay, said he was glad to see elected officials and political candidates at the festivities.
“Makes me good [to know] that, you know, there are people that are rooting for the gay community and that if we have any concerns, we can go to them and hopefully get them addressed,” Spoonamore said.
Contact WFYI All Things Considered newscaster and reporter Samantha Horton at shorton@wfyi.org or on Signal at SamHorton.05
