San Diego Shows Its LGBT Pride This Weekend

San Diego Pride got its start in 1974, a time when people weren’t especially friendly to LGBT people in this right-leaning Southern California city. Four hundred men and women showed up at Balboa Park in June that year for a rally and a march. The somewhat rundown Hillcrest neighborhood where they gathered had been slowly evolving into a community where LGBT people felt safe and accepted.

Now that neighborhood is one of the most prominent LGBT communities in Southern California. And that small 1974 gathering has evolved in three-day event (July 18-20) that brings tens of thousands of LGBT people from Southern California and afar to Hillcrest each year.

There are earlier events. For example, She Fest took place on Saturday at North Park Community Park. There women gathered for various music performances, workshops and sporting events. And in preparation for Pride, the city’s Imperial Court hel  the Mr., Miss, Ms., Transgender & Youth Gay Pride Pageant this past Sunday.

You can begin your official celebration of Pride on Friday, when the Multicultural LGBT Literary Foundation will host “Expressions of Pride,” a free literary event, from 1-5 p.m. at the Diversionary Theatre Building, 4545 Park Blvd. at Madison.

At 6 p.m. at Normal Street and University Avenue, the Hillcrest Pride Flag rally will be held. The rally celebrates the erection in 2012 of a 65-foot flagpole from which flies the rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBT rights. Transgender actress and activist Laverne Cox (“Orange is  the New Black”) will preside over a ceremony that includes raising the flag and unveiling a new Pride monument.

And then it’s time for some fun at the Pride of Hillcrest block party, which takes place around the flag area. Now in its third year, the event has partiers dancing in the streets to music spun by local DJs. It begins at 7 p.m. and concludes at 11 p.m.  General admission tickets ($20) and various levels of VIP passes can be purchased online.

The next day, the Pride parade begins at University and Normal at 11 a.m. San Diego Pride, the non-profit organization that puts on the parade and accompanying festival, has responded to complaints that past parades have been too long. This year the number of parade floats and marching groups is limited to 150, which means you’ll be able to see the whole thing in two hours.

And what will you be seeing? Of course, there will be the usual floats with shirtless go-go boys and contingents from San Diego’s wide array of LGBT groups and organizations. This year’s grand marshal is Toni Atkins, speaker of the California State Assembly. Community grand marshals will include representatives of the LGBT Community Center, Dignity San Diego, the Imperial Court de San Diego and the Metropolitan Community Church. Given that San Diego is home to several military bases (Point Loma, Camp Pendleton, etc.), you shouldn’t be surprised when the parade’s military contingent marches by.

Saturday is also the day the Pride festival in Balboa Park opens. It will include nine different entertainment areas with an array of musicians who hadn’t been announced as of this publication. Tickets for two days of the music festival are $20 and can be purchased online. (The San Diego LGBT Center will also provide free two-day music festival passes to those who volunteer for a voter registration drive on the morning of the Pride parade.) The festival also will offer a “Cool Zone” for those 55 and over, a “Leather Realm” for the leather crowd, a wedding expo, an “Art of Pride” exhibit by local LGBT artists, a “youth zone” and a “Children’s Garden.”  And of course vendors offering everything from T-shirts to tacos.

The festival runs from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. The NASA “Driven to Explore” mobile exhibit will be set up at the festival both days.