Within the last three years, finding things to celebrate has been hard. But after two years, the TriPride took place in Bristol. It made history as the first pride parade in the United States to take place in two states at the same time.
John Golden, director of UKirk at ETSU, talked about their first time attending.
“TriPride is part of my coming out experience. I attended the first TriPride and I was so scared to transgress gender norms that I only expressed my feminity in small ways, but the next year I wore a skirt, and being around LGBT+ people helps me feel safe and comfortable expressing my gender my way.”
The festival had two main events: the festival and the parade.
With people from all walks of life coming, I was introduced to my very first true pride event where I felt safe to be myself, to kiss my girlfriend, and to dance like nobody was watching.
The parade was not exactly what I was expecting with a more subdued crowd. However, the floats were beautiful. The ETSU Colorguard was one of the best groups of performers that we got to see.
When that ended, we did spend a good two hours waiting in line to be let into Cumberland Park for the festival, but once in we had the time of our lives.
With such a large park, we got to meet people from all over Virginia and Northeast Tennessee and attend various activities including watching a drag show, listening to Demon Waffle and enjoying the banners that were put up to educate and celebrate queer history.
I didn’t really try any of the food aside from ice cream to cool myself off (pants were the wrong idea), however, Quinn did and she said, “The hourlong wait for Shane’s Place was kinda crazy, but the food was really good. I like to think it was worth it.”
It was a little overwhelming and I had to take breaks regularly, however, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything and I’m so happy that we got to go and that there was an event for people to celebrate themselves after two years of sourdough bread and streaming services.
I will definitely be attending next year and I would strongly encourage readers to set time aside whenever the dates for next year are released.
Golden was right when they said that pride was “transcendent, transgender, trans state line”
