James Steed surveyed the crowd celebrating PrideFest and remembered the years when Denver’s gay community lived in the shadows.
Police would harass customers at gay bars, and few were willing to risk losing a job by revealing their sexual orientation, the retired public school teacher said.
“This is so out in the open,” he said as gays, lesbians and straight people passed after a parade that police estimate drew just over 100,000 people. “There is a good, positive attitude from the police; that is certainly a change,” said Steed, 69.
The two-day PrideFest, which started Saturday, drew 250 vendors, plus 3,000 participants to Sunday’s parade, according to the event’s sponsor, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of Colorado.
Feathers and sequins were on display along with baggy shorts and T-shirts as drag queens joined less-flamboyantly attired people in the annual celebration.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, which helped to launch the modern gay liberation movement.
“It is important for Denver to see how many gay people there are, that we are not just a few eccentrics locked in the closet,” said Donna Jaegers, 51, a telecom analyst with Denver-based D.A. Davidson & Co.
PrideFest also demonstrates the wide range of diversity within the gay, lesbian and transgender community, Jaegers said.
“When we make news, usually it is the most flamboyant. When we go to the parade, we see every segment of society,” she said.
Lauren Danley, 50, and Todd Paustian, 35, traveled from Wyoming to party at PrideFest and to bring attention to Rendezvous, Wyoming’s Pride event, which begins Aug. 5.
The five-day camp-out at Medicine Bow National Forest normally draws up to 500 people, they said.
“This was fun; it was a good year,” Danley said of Denver’s PrideFest. Danley has attended it seven or eight times.
Chris “Chi Chi” Frane, 30, is too young to remember the Stonewall riots, which played out over several nights after police raided the bar in Greenwich Village.
Since that time, things have improved dramatically for gay people, said Frane, a hairdresser who was dressed as a pirate.
“Since Stonewall, the progress we are making has been historical. Love and equality can’t be stopped.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
