Dorothy and companions meet melting green witch

Pride Houston 365 missed a golden opportunity

Cities move Pride festivals & Parades to cooler October

Commentary: Las Vegas did it. Atlanta did it. Even Galveston and Corpus Christi did it. What these cities did was move their Pride festivals and parades to a time of year that does not put participants’ and
observers’ lives as risk.

Since the early days of Pride parades, they have traditionally been held in late June to coincide with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the beginning of the gay rights movement.

Holding Pride events later in the year is beginning to build momentum with October leading the way. October is recognized as LGBTQ+ History Month. First established in 1994 by a coalition of education organizations, it was chosen to coincide with the school calendar and highlight queer contributions to history.

So, in June, when the Pride Houston 365 Parade was cancelled because of weather, no one was surprised when it was rescheduled for October, when Houston evenings are pleasant enough that we don’t melt the minute we step outside and drag queens don’t leave a trail of makeup on the parade route.

Oh, wait a minute. Something is amiss here. They did what? August 15? They didn’t! What in the search for a cooling center were they thinking? Twinks will be melting faster than the Wicked Witch could say, “What a world, what a world.”

In a surprisingly low-key statement, Pride Houston 365 announced a new date for the parade. “Let’s make August 15 iconic — The Parade is officially happening, and we’re coming louder than ever. New date, same power, bigger celebration — Bring the color. Bring the joy. Bring the Pride. We’re turning this into a moment — See you there.

“Rain changed the date. It did not change our commitment to showing up for our community. Save the date. Bring your pride. See you on August 15.”

Mid-August is the time of year when Houstonians sport red stripes on the palms of their hands from the burns inflicted by their cars’ steering wheels. With an average high temperature of 96°F, humidity that feels like being slapped with a hot wet towel and mosquitoes treating small children as an evening snack, August 15 and outdoor activities in the Bayou City are a match made in hell.

October 11 is National Coming Out Day, created in 1980 to encourage LGBTQ+ individuals to live openly as their true selves. This year, National Coming Out Day falls on a Sunday. What a perfect time for a daytime parade through the mountainous caverns of downtown. With an average high temperature of 85°F, the weather would be wonderfully comfortable.

October 11 is a day to celebrate living authentically and support individuals in “coming out” about their sexual orientation or gender identity. It promotes visibility, emphasizing that being open helps break down harmful stereotypes and fosters acceptance. Doing so during a parade might be just the incentive some folks need.

If Pride Houston 365 wanted to keep the nighttime tradition, Saturday, October 10 could have found hundreds of thousands of Texans gathered on the streets of the fourth largest city in America on a crisp fall evening and serve as a build-up to October 11.

An alternative is Saturday, October 31. Halloween’s average high temperature is 78°F! Affectionately celebrated as “Gay Christmas” by the LGBTQ+ community, Halloween serves as a night of ultimate liberation, offering a uniquely safe, public space to subvert gender norms, cross-dress and express authentic identities without fear of ridicule.

Halloween is the one night of the year when you can be anyone — or anything — you want to be. Many drag queens have told us that the first time they dressed in drag was on Halloween. One can easily imagine Houston making this a daylong double header — a daytime downtown parade and a night of revelry in Montrose.

To keep the parade a nighttime affair, combining Pride with Halloween would offer a festive trek through city Boulevards, much like Halloween celebrations in Rio de Janeiro and West Hollywood. Bars could hold costume contests afterwards.

Pride Houston 365 surely had its reasons for choosing the hottest time of year to hold a parade in the concrete caverns of downtown Houston, but they missed a golden opportunity to explore something many other cities have already done and had enormous success with.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of the Montrose Star. Johnny Trlica is the editor of Houston Rainbow Herald Facebook page and has been published in several newspapers and magazines. He grew up in Rosenberg, Texas, lived for over 30 years in the Montrose and now resides in Galveston, Texas. He may be contacted at HRHeditor@gmail.com.

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