Why organizers are making this year’s Full Spectrum Pride in the Valley biggest ever
Tim Bortner with Youngstown-based LGBTQIA+ center Full Spectrum Community Outreach is 30 days away from the fifth annual Full Spectrum Pride in the Valley, the biggest celebration yet.
This year, for the first time, there’s a full week of Full Spectrum Pride events starting June 10 through June 15.
“It’s our fifth-year anniversary. We want to go all out with a big bang, so we said ‘Let’s have a whole week of events and different types of events that we could do throughout the whole week,’” said Bortner. “We have some fun events. We have family-friendly events and some educational events, and it all leads up to Pride.”
There’s free admission for the festival, and the parade starts at noon on June 15 at Courthouse Square in downtown Warren.
During the festival, Bortner said several drag performers will sparkle on the Full Spectrum stage.
“We have the amazing Denise Russell, who is the only drag performer to ever perform on the Grand Ole Opry stage and an amazing singer,” Bortner said. “She sings live shows, hosts our winter gala that we do every year. She’ll be performing at 2 p.m. and then we have Sassy Sascha, another drag performer she’s also going to be there, I don’t know the exact time on that. But she has a whole hour drag show. We also have some local theatre companies that are coming out to perform.”
Kids can listen to stories read by drag performers and be involved in the show.
“We want to ensure it’s also family-friendly, we really want to push that,” Bortner said. “It’s very important for us to have a family-friendly event, so that anyone can come but also just to be involved in any way.”
Listen to live music on the main stage at 5 p.m. with Pretty Pretty Awful and visit vendors.
“There’s the fire and flow at 7 p.m. and it’s going to be local fire breathers, hula hoopers, jugglers and a few other performers in there, and they’re going to perform on stage and do a big show,” said Bortner. “Then our final act of the night is our big drag extravaganza with all local drag performers from 8 to 10 p.m. and it’s a huge show that we do every year. This year is supposed to be bigger because it’s our fifth year anniversary.”
Organizers are looking for vendors and volunteers to help out during the festival, as well as community nominations for the grand marshal of the parade; visit the Pride in the Valley website for more information.
“It takes about 50 people to put on the festival and we need people to sign up and want to be involved and that means even if you just want to help clean up trash and you know help put up signs and you know even if you could donate an hour, you know that day to do that. That would be great.
According to Bortner, there’s more reasons than ever to show support for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Mahoning Valley.
“There’s a lot of big bills right now in the Ohio, Ohio Senate that are about the past one is actually a drag queen show bill that will ban all drag shows in public areas. That means that well if that passes, having a drag on Courthouse Square Warren will be illegal and we won’t be able to necessarily do it,” he said.
Bortner also referenced other Ohio bills that affect the local LGBTQIA+ community: the transgender students and bathrooms bill, as well as a Franklin County court case about gender-affirming care treatment for students.
“These are things that are passing and there’s also a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill about to pass,” said Bortner. “That means schools, a counselor or a teacher will be required to report to the parent or the school administrators that a child is LGBTQ. We have no idea what some kids’ lives are like at home. If you send them home to a bad environment that’s not going to be supportive... that child’s safety is going to be at risk...They’re really trying to hide it so that people don’t talk about it. And we just we really want to educate the community and let people know Hey, these are going to if these passes is going to be really very, very dangerous for our state and the mental health of our of our community.”
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This story was originally published May 16, 2024 at 2:57 PM.
