Kansas City celebrated the LGBTQ+ community at the 47th annual PrideFest and parade this weekend at Theis Park.
“Pride gives the LGBTQIA+ community a place they can go if they are not fully supported by their own community,”said Amelia Horsley, event attendee. “It shows them ‘you still belong here, even if the people in your life say that you don’t.”
Horsley was there with their mom and little brother. They attended last year and said they enjoyed the continued good energy and positive crowd.
“Not everybody looks or thinks the same and that’s ok,” said Horselys mom, who expressed the importance of teaching your children about diversity and inclusivity.
The festival was nearly derailed on Thursday morning when one of the two stages was stolen, literally.
The stage has yet to be recovered, but another stage was arranged before the beginning of the festival.
“You can steal our stage, but you can’t steal our pride,” said event organizers Kansas City Pride Community Alliance in a social media post on Thursday.
Alongside many other organizations, Fire Station 37 connected with the community with a booth full of fun freebies.
“It’s important for the fire department to show our faces because we work in the community, and want to show our support back,” said Kristen Gibbs, a firefighter and EMT.
With KCFD, Tiffany Greene, UMKC School of Law alumni and firefighter, participated in Pride for the first time.
She said that the reason why it is important for KCFD to show up was “inclusivity, period.”
From tattoos to drag shows, attendees had no shortage of ways to show their pride.
On the festival’s final day, Coco Montrese from Season 5 of the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race dazzled Kansas City.
She performed as the iconic Janet Jackson to finish out PrideFest 2024.
For more information on this year’s PrideFest, click here.
