Thousands out and about Saturday to support SO Pride
By Art Van Kraft for Ashland.news
An exuberant crowd of an estimated 1,000 people lined Ashland’s Main Street Saturday morning, cheering and applauding the 14th annual Southern Oregon Pride Parade. The street was filled with color and motion as participants pranced, danced and sang, recapturing the energy of Pride Parades of the past.
The crowd followed the parade into the Plaza and weaved up Winburn Way toward Butler Bandshell for a slate of performances. Along the way, people passsed parked floats and booths where all variety of interests and programs were displayed.
As the hillside filled at the bandshell in Lithia Park, the crowd was greeted by Parade Grand Marshal Justin Huertas, the award-winning Seattle playwright whose original musical “Lizard Boy” is wrapping up its run at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
“When we arived in Asland to start our work, we’ve been met with nothing but open hearted compasion and care,” Huertas said. “The city feels like a magical fairyland for every brand of queer mythical creature with a beating rainbow heart. Our show centers around a young gay man of color learning to accept and celebrate that the things that make him different are his super powers. Today is the day you remember to live completely and out loud in all your glory.”
Performances at the bandshell were emceed by Lady Luci LaVicious. Acts included a drag show and aerial acrobats.
Two drag artists from Portland took a break back at the Plaza after the parade. Both Sister Frieda Copulate and Sister Marmalaid Poundcake said they travel to Pride events throughout the region. They deliberately make appearance in small towns for a reason.
“I try to support all of the more rural towns with pride because they are the most in need. Portland has so much support, these smaller towns need support. We like to come out and help in any way we can. I marched with everybody to show my pride, Copulate said.
Sister Marmalaid Pound Cake said the need to support gay and transgender people is greatest in small towns like Ashland.
“We are a queer organization with the goal of expiating stigmatic guilt and promulgating omniversal joy, There’s a lot of guilt that comes along with being queer. We are trying to blotch that away and replace it with joy. We want people to feel they can be who they are and this is one of the ways we do it. We dress to the the loudest, wierdest folks in the room and that allows everyone else to be exactly who they are, Sisters of Professional Indulgence,” Pound Cake said.
On a parked float festooned with balloons, Hadassah Dejack reached out to passersby to present her organization, one that helps injured animals.
“We are here to celebrate pride. We are a nonprofit. Tikkun Olam Farm Sanctuary in Phoenix provides a forever home for abused, abandoned, neglected and unwanted farm animals,” Dejack said.
The gay theme even applies to animals, she explained.
“We are also an LGBTQ organization. We have intersexed animals at our sanctuary. That means they are born with male and female parts and we use they, them pronouns to identify the animals. The term was originally hermaphroditic, but now we used ‘intersexed’ to be more accurate. We also have two gay ducks who have partnered together for six years,” she said.
Dejack said the sanctuary was instrumental in rescuing and treating animals in the Alameda Fire.
“We worked in conjunction with the National Guard and received a large number of burned and injured farm animals that weren’t evacuated. We also have a current happy ending. We are taking in a sheep named Hersch. He was going to be slaughtered. A local homesteader had him and he has such an engaging personality that they decided they couldn’t kill him so they gave him to us,” Dejack said.
Further along the Winburn Way, one booth gave information about treatment and support for transgenders. Marlene Dabestan is a nurse practitioner at OnePeak Medical’s Talent and Ashland facilities.
“I’m here representing the gender-affirming care we’re offering. We do hormone replacement and connect people with surgical services, we do everything from primary care to gender affirming. Not all medical providers are offering this right now, but we are in our Talent office and we have an office in Ashland,” she said.
Art Van Kraft is an artist living in Ashland and a former broadcast journalist and news director of a Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate. Email him at artukraft@msn.com.
