Denver Pride’s 46th Year: Celebrating ‘Meaningful Protections,’ Maintaining Vigilance – CBS Denver
DENVER (CBS4) – As many as 500,000 people expected at Denver’s Pride events this weekend. The celebration benefits the programming of Denver’s LGBTQ community center – The Center on Colfax.
Denver’s first official gay pride parade took place in 1976. The Center on Colfax displays the permit from that first year.
(credit: Christi Layne)
The Center’s CEO Rex Fuller said, “The intent was to be visible, to show people that LGBTQ people were present in the community and to show that our lives are important.”
It was a time when coming out took extraordinary courage.
“Denver had a very dark history of harassing gay men through police and arresting people unnecessarily,” Fuller said.
(credit: History Colorado)
A small group of activists in Denver worked for years to end discrimination. A young Rex Fuller was watching from afar. “I grew up in rural Colorado. Very isolated. I didn’t have any support. And so looking at a community like Denver and knowing that there were other people that I could relate to was really important.”
Pride events in Denver are now among the largest in the country. People come from across Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region to support people being true to who they are.
“I’m happy to say that we do have a lot of support here from law enforcement and from the community in general,” added Fuller. “Compared to many other states, Colorado is really in pretty good shape. There has been so much activism over the last 30 years that have really created a lot of meaningful protections for the LGBTQ community.”
(credit: CBS)
Attacks on transgender people have been on the rise around the country. Equitable health care is also still a goal. So Pride is also about vigilance.
The Center on Colfax programming includes support for LGBTQ youth and older adults as well transgender individuals. Pride events are taking place all month.
Pride weekend kicks off with a 5K Run, Walk, Roll or Sashay stepping off at the State Capitol on Saturday, June 25 at 9:30 a.m. There is a two day festival at Civic Center Park from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 25 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on June 26.
The big Pride Parade steps off at 9:30 a.m. on June 26. Guests line 14 blocks of Colfax Avenue starting from Cheesman Park and ending at Denver’s Civic Center.