Pittsburgh Pride organizers reflect on importance of the events – TribLIVE.com

Graham Miller, owner of 5801 Video Lounge, poses for a portrait on Tuesday at 5801 Video Lounge in Shadyside.
Four years after the 1969 Stonewall riots in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, Pittsburgh held its first ever gay pride parade.
“Pride started off with the Stonewall riots and has turned into more of a celebration, but I don’t think we can ever lose the roots that it was really a protest,” said Graham Miller, co-owner of 5801 Video Lounge in Shadyside, an inclusive LGBTQIA bar that celebrated its 20th anniversary last week.
“It’s a matter of showing, like the generations before us, that we’re continuing a journey of achieving equality,” said Asta Kill, organizer of Lebo Pride, Mt. Lebanon’s LGBTQIA celebration.
The June 17, 1973, march had a turnout of about 100 people who went from Market Square to Schenley Park. In 2024, a plethora of Pride events in the city set a new attendance record of more than 260,000 people.
Now, in 2025, organizers and members of the LGBTQIA community are preparing for an even fiercer weekend, with events from May 31-June 1 and regional celebrations throughout Pride Month in June.
As laws and societal attitudes have evolved in the intervening decades, so have Pride celebrations in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Pride marches began in the 1970s, but records of marches and celebrations fall off in the 1980s. Jim Sheppard, co-creator of QBurgh and one of the organizers of Pittsburgh Pride, said that there’s plenty of evidence connecting this lull and the HIV/AIDS crisis that pushed LGBTQIA people out of public life.
According to QBurgh, Pride marches returned in 1991, this time with a new innovation: the selection of an annual theme. By the early ’90s, attendance had swelled up to about 500.
This renewed spirit came the year after Pittsburgh’s City Council passed an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Though anti-gay rights Pittsburghers fought the new guidelines with a petition, gay rights groups at the time fought back and were ultimately successful in keeping the rules in place.
In 1992, those numbers doubled to 1,000; a decade later, in 2002, they ballooned to 10,000.
The 2014 celebration was all the more meaningful after the May 20 decision of Whitewood v. Wolf, in which a federal district court judge ruled Pennsylvania’s ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional. That year, 100,000 people celebrated Pride in Pittsburgh, bolstered by the recent court ruling. Nineteen same-sex couples were married by Mayor Bill Peduto during the June 15 parade.
In 2015, Obergfell v. Hodges, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that codified the legality of gay marriage across the country, came too late in June to be celebrated at Pittsburgh Pride, though events did draw 110,000 people that year. Unfortunately, the following year saw the marking of a much more alarming and somber occasion.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen entered Pulse Nightclub, a gay club in Orlando, Fla., and opened fire, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more. Pittsburgh’s Pride parade was held later that same day.
At the time, the Delta Foundation was organizing the event, and they quickly put together a tribute and held 50 seconds of silence in remembrance of the victims at Pulse.
Even as crowds and events have grown larger and larger in the past decade, the shadow of renewed attacks on the rights of gay and trans people have fallen on the festivities. This is clear in the themes of recent years’ events, from “Stand Up Fight Back” (2022) to “No Fear” (2023) to “Still We Rise” (2024).
The theme for 2025 is “YOUniting Diversity,” a call for solidarity and inclusion across all communities.
While Pittsburgh Pride has expanded over the decades from a march to a festival to multiple, multiday events, Sheppard said that the Pride March and Parade, which will be held Sunday, retains the goals of its origins.
“The march is more in protest style. Everyone bring your signs, bring your flags. We’re standing up for our lives and for ourselves and what we believe in,” he said. “After that portion, it’s switched over to a more celebratory parade with floats and vehicles and flag twirlers.”
Sheppard has been volunteering for about a decade with Pittsburgh Pride, but QBurgh has been involved with organizing the parade for the past four years.
“It’s probably the best gig, because everyone shows up and they’re all happy,” he said.
Sheppard stressed the vitality of visibility during Pride month.
“It really feels like there’s been a concerted effort by prominent media figures, politicians, to demonize and weaponize the identities of trans people and queer people in the past several years. This has resulted in the passage of laws in different states across the country, executive orders from the president, book bans in libraries, different things like that,” Sheppard said. “There’s a concerted effort to erase our stories. So it’s important for us to show up, especially on parade day. To show the world, show Pittsburgh, show the country, that we’re still here, we still matter and our lives are beautiful and we deserve to be celebrated.”
Miller is looking forward to the several Pride events that 5801 will be hosting this weekend.
“It’s nonstop for us, but we love it. It’s our favorite time of year. We start planning it in November and December and then just watch all of the pieces kind of come together and watch everyone have a good time. That’s really what that does for us,” he said of Pride.
Miller definitely sees Pride a little differently this year, amongst a more contentious political climate.
“We know that the way the government is running, it’s not an inclusive environment. It feels very hostile. It feels very unwelcoming. So again, that idea of community and a safe space and that idea that there’s a place where you can go and be yourself and be comfortable with who you are and be proud of who you are, I think that has more meaning than ever.”
Events at 5801 will include a Sapphic happy hour and dance night on Friday night; a drag brunch and street festival on Saturday, with a party inside as it gets later; and a drag brunch and post-parade street party on Sunday.
One of the most important historical features of Pride is community — finding solidarity amongst the LGBTQIA community in Pittsburgh, but also with your neighbors.
This sentiment has given rise to localized Pride celebrations around Allegheny County, from Fox Chapel to Lawrenceville to Mt. Lebanon to Millvale.
Fox Chapel will hold Pride in the Park at Allegheny RiverTrail Park on June 29 from 3 to 7 p.m. The event is geared particularly towards younger people and will include a gender-affirming clothing swap, a banned book swap, games, arts and crafts, a drag bingo and story hour, a craft fair and resource fair, and more.
“Our goal this year, as much as we love a fun street festival, was to not end up just being a street festival with rainbows,” said Pride Millvale co-organizer Hayley Sugg. “Pride really means community to me. Getting to know my neighbors better, getting to know queer people in my neighborhood better.”
Pride Millvale will hold its fifth annual celebration on June 14, employing one unique and fun way of finding solidarity.
“We actually have stickers that we’re selling that say ‘Borough Buddy’ on them. They have our little raccoon mascot on them,” Sugg said, adding that the stickers represent — both during and after Pride — people who are allies in Millvale and beyond.
“That’s kind of a nod to, we know who our community is. Even if I don’t know your first name, I’m like, oh, here’s a person near me that may be helpful. That’s a little bit of the goal, to bolster the community that lives in Millvale, although everyone from outside of Millvale is welcome to visit us for Pride.”
Sugg has lived in Millvale since 2021 and said that she’s found a true home in the area.
In Mt. Lebanon, Lebo Pride will center around the theme of “Queer Bear,” a twist on the Cheer Bear that represents the love, heart, resilience and creativity of the local LGBTQIA community. Kill said that Pride is always important.
“Our existence, our visibility and our participation is just because we are human. That alone is important, that we participate in public life. And to show our joy, that our joy is independent of whether we’re accepted or not.
“Our joy is there because we are who we are,” he added.
Mt. Lebanon is hosting its fourth annual Pride celebration on June 14 at Mt. Lebanon Main Park.
“The spirit of care and solidarity is woven into every part of our celebration, reminding us that we are stronger together,” he said.
Miller emphasized the joy of Pride. “Pride is a celebration. It’s a time to come together as a community. It’s a time to be proud of who you are and learn to accept others for who they are.”
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