Rain Can’t Dampen New Haven Pride

It was 3 p.m. on Saturday, and it had been raining for at least an hour. The New Haven Pride celebration, however, was in full swing. 

Inside the New Haven Pride Center on Orange Street, beyond the information desk set up by the door, there was a larger room with music echoing from the back. People milled around, a wall of patched jackets and floral clothing. 

One person in corduroy overalls had every pocket stuffed with little crochet animals. Along one wall, a massive booth sold those same crochet animals. Next to it was a barber offering free haircuts, with two chairs and a short queue of people. 

Because of the rain, the music performances for the day were moved from an outdoor stage to the Pride Center at 50 Orange St. To the sound of Yale choir Whim ​‘n Rhythm’s rendition of ​“Pink Pony Club,” by lesbian pop star Chappell Roan, people shopped, laughed, danced, and sang along with the chorus. Outside, the festival was proceeding as it usually has for the past few of its 28 years.

New Haven Pride is an annual block party with a vast array of vendors and community organizations spanning the blocks of Orange Street from George Street to Center Street, this year intersected by the Closer to Free ride on Crown Street. People sold handmade crafts such as bracelets and earrings, fan art of queer icons like Roan and Bill Cypher (a cartoon character Gravity Falls), and goth tapestries. A large Latin food truck sold empanadas and arepas on the far end of the festival. 

One vendor at the event was Free Mom Hugs, a national nonprofit with 300 members in Connecticut. Kathleen Wells, the chapter president for the county of New Haven, described the organization’s goal as ​“not to replace parents, but to support people whose parents don’t support them.” She reported that, throughout the day, she gets a steady stream of queer teenagers and adults who take them up on the chance for an embrace.

Between Crown and George, across from a row of small canopies for vendors was one large tent with tables for safety and health organizations underneath. They offered a variety of information about safe sex, the HAVEN Free Clinic, PrEP sign ups, and AIDS testing. Almost every booth had condoms.

One organization in the tent was Anchor Health, a health center founded in 2016 with locations in Hamden and Stamford. Anchor Health provides primary care, gender care, and sexual health care, as well as community involvement beyond clinical care. 

At New Haven Pride, the center was collecting submissions for its yearly zine. Interested participants were given a set of prompts themed around ​“Soft Queer Summer, which is about radical vulnerability.” Anchor was also giving away the previous year’s issue (also available online), with the theme of ​“Queer Joy or Bust,” focused on joy being fundamental and essential to the queer and trans experience. It included short writing sections about identity, community-submitted stories about queer joy (“getting my first binder” or ​“living to 18 when I didn’t think I’d live past 13”), lengthier writing about ​“getting the most out of your bottoming experience,” and a queer history crossword.

The main emphasis of New Haven Pride, however, is on people just hanging out — reflected in the decision to hold the festival in September so that college students could participate in the celebration. Despite the rain, people gathered inside to watch the music, shopped at the vendors outside, and played ping pong, Jenga, and other board games.

Pride festivals across the country have grappled with the tone to set for their events over the years. One side is attentive to the event’s origins, remembering that, as the phrase goes, the ​“first pride was a riot,” and that the rebellion shown at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969 should be maintained. By that logic, Pride is supposed to be edgy, to feel a little dangerous. On the other side is the argument that Pride should be a celebration, almost wholesomely so, to the point that families with children should feel welcome and comfortable. By that logic, Pride should feel friendly.

There can be some tension between the two camps, between people wearing spikes and making noisy music and people who show up for rainbow stickers and community chalk painting. New Haven Pride, however, strikes a healthy balance between these two strands of thought. The booths offering fun rainbow stickers and free community crafts coexisted with the booths vending sex toys, condoms, and tails.

This mixture was reflected in the attendees as well. Excited children talked to drag queens while their parents waited in line for arepas. Young adults walked Orange Street in fishnets and My Chemical Romance shirts that were more hole than shirt. Older people in hiking attire bought beaded rainbow jewelry. The people at Pride were all of the above, and everyone in between.