So we do ours after people are back in town, when we know we can get the infrastructure in the park that we need. We do it in August here, because June is kind of an impossible month, throw another event in Eugene with the university’s graduation with track and field events, it’s really hard to get the tents and the infrastructure that we need to put the festival together. June, of course, is when the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising which started the modern gay rights movement, and what pride represents in June. And so anything we do is inherently political.īURKE: I’m wondering, would you tell me about why Eugene celebrates pride in August instead of June when many Pride celebrations take place around the country?
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I mean, that’s the reality of being queer in the United States, we can’t have celebration without being activists, because we’re not full citizens yet under the law.
So pride is really important so that we can kind of see each other know who each other are and make the connections that will help us kind of combat some of these issues that we’re facing.īURKE: Is pride celebration, or is it activism or is being visible and celebrating its own form of activism? MCLAIN: We don’t have a ton of, you know, queer events or queer spaces that are dedicated in Eugene or Lane County. McLain is the Co-President of Eugene Pride. The interview that follows has been edited for length and clarity. In recent years the organization has also tracked record numbers of fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people. For context, early in 2023, the Human Rights Campaign, a LGBTQ+ civil rights and advocacy group, identified 340 state-level anti-LGBTQ+ bills, 150 or which targeted transgender people.
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