Woodstock’s LGBTQ+ Pride parade on Sunday meant many things for thousands of participants and spectators: Visibility, community, resilience, joy—and above all, the freedom to be fully seen.
Crowds lined Tinker Street shoulder-to-shoulder for a third year of festivities, featuring a parade from the town offices on Comeau Drive to the Colony, which hosted a free afternoon of performances. Rainbow flags flapped from storefronts and along sidewalks as community members, dancers, families and allies filled the streets.
The event, organized by Aileen Morgan and Erica Bliss of Queerly, Inc., along with a robust team of volunteers, also included art exhibits, a fundraiser, and other community activities throughout the whole weekend. Bliss said before the events that organizers expected a similar turnout to last year, when an estimated 3,500 people attended.
Beyond the festive atmosphere, participants spoke of Pride as something deeper than a celebration.
“I love Pride because it gives everyone a community, those who have a family and those who don’t have a family,” said Saugerties resident Sarah Mangione, who was playing the drums on the parade’s first-ever float. “We all have found family.”
She said this year she was particularly proud to be a voice for the local transgender community.
“My best friend just got top surgery in December,” she said. “Thank f**king god we’re in New York. At this time, it’s really important that we have a voice to showcase. We’re lucky we’re in a place where we’re able to.”
Mangione was joined on the float by Blair Baldwin, a singer and musician from Houston. Baldwin said the difference in the LGBTQ+ experience between Woodstock and her home city was stark.
“Houston is a big city, so there’s plenty of community, but here, we’re all able to exist, have our opinions and be cordial and sweet to each other, which you cannot find everywhere,” she said.
On guitar was Abby Travis, who lives in Willow.
“What Pride means to me is taking pride in people getting to live their true, authentic selves with no boundaries whatsoever and celebrating the individuality of the queer community,” she said.
Representing non-binary identities was Nova Darkstar of Shokan, who uses they/them pronouns and sported a sash labelled “They/Them of the Year.”
“It’s incumbent upon me to be visual,” they said. “It’s safe for me to do so, and it feels really good. Trans people exist.”
Grand marshal Sabrina Asch, in the role for a third year, marched at the front of the parade with a staff emblazoned with this year’s theme, “Love is the Revolution.”
“I hope that the parade and the experience embodies radical inclusion, as well as the importance of community, and that we all feel seen, heard, important, and a part of something bigger than ourselves,” Asch said. “That’s my overall modus operandi in life, but today, it’s elevated in a mass scale.”
For Jim Hanson, a Woodstock firefighter for more than half a century, Pride meant something simpler.
“It’s for all of us, no matter who you are,” Hanson said. “Pride’s good. You are who you are and you’re the only one.”
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
