This year’s Pride Month calendar is packed with long-established events reflecting our community’s decades-long traditions as well as new and unique ones, a result of recent strides in our progress towards LGBTQ equality. A cluster of Pride celebrations at the beginning of the month culminates with the 31st Milwaukee PrideFest creating a veritable Pride Week.
The LGBT of Walworth County Pride Potluck and Movie Night launches the week on Friday, June 1. The next day, June 2, two events take place in the Milwaukee area. Veterans for Diversity’s “Pins for Patriots” bowling fundraiser at Classic Lanes in Greenfield and the first “Brady Street Drag Crawl,” a fundraiser for LGBTQ youth support organization, Courage Milwaukee, happens that afternoon with pop-up drag performances along Brady Street. The Crawl winds up at Nomad World Pub for a patio party.
On Sunday, June 3, Dignity/Milwaukee, the local affiliate of DignityUSA, the national organization of LGBT Catholics, hosts an LGBT Pride Potluck Celebration. Another faith-based event takes place on Wednesday, June 6, at the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. The Interfaith Ecumenical Community Celebration of Marriage Equality marks the third anniversary of marriage equality in Wisconsin and the nation.
PrideFest launches Milwaukee’s lakefront festival season with a celebration of LGBTQ life and culture. Now a four-day festival (June 7-10) PrideFest presents local and national name musical entertainment as well as dance, history, health and sports programs. This year it introduces several new innovations including its first Thursday opening featuring a dance party and The Big Gay 5K Run, a fundraiser for the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin. Another new and unique activity is the Ride with Pride motorcycle ride that powers off at the Harley-Davidson Museum at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
In its mission to give back to the community, PrideFest’s Plus 1 program allows ticket purchasers to add $1 to their price of admission as a charitable donation. This year’s beneficiary is Milwaukee’s health and capacity building organization, Diverse & Resilient. Also, in a new initiative for LGBTQ health, festival organizer Milwaukee Pride has turned away monetary support by the tobacco industry. Hopefully, there will be voter registration kiosks at the festival as well.
On Sunday, June 10, the Milwaukee Pride Parade steps off at 2 p.m. on South Second Street and marches through the Walker’s Point gay-borhood to Erie Street. MPD joins the marching units for the first time while GAMMA president Bim Florek appears again as his alter ego, Milwaukee’s favorite son, Liberace!
Celebrating its 30th year of fundraising, the Challenge Party holds its gala on June 15. The Challengers have raised more than $1.1 million for LGBTQ causes over its three decades of community philanthropy.
The first annual Milwaukee Brewers Pride Night takes place on Thursday, June 21, with a community tailgate party preceding the game. Various ticket packages are available and include game seats, the tailgate party and a special issue rainbow Brewers Pride Night T-shirt.
As if that weren’t enough, Milwaukee’s LVL owner George Prentice told me the renovation of the old La Cage dance club could be completed and open for business by late June.
