City of W-S: Stop hitting yourself

Pride Month sashayed into Winston-Salem with big plans and much promise: an annual Pride Festival scheduled for the middle of the month, a new crosswalk mural to commemorate the occasion and, in a show of support and to increase visibility, the city temporarily changed the profile picture on its Facebook page to a version of the city logo emblazoned with the Pride flag.

That adjustment would last about an hour.

After a swarm of comments on the page — both for and against the move — the city swapped out the Pride logo for the original.

Awareness Month and Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month, among others. The city is dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, however, as a matter of fairness we cannot promote one cause over the others through our logo.”

He forgot National Camping Month, National Fruit and Vegetables Month, National Salsa Month and National DJ Month, all of which have chosen June to highlight their causes.

June is Pride Month

But c’mon. The city is not dropping a mural to celebrate salsa, nor is it planning a weekend of festivities to honor local DJs (though that’s not a bad idea).

Compounding this unforced error, an email from the city’s Director of Marketing and Communications Frank Elliott blamed the reversal on an unnamed rogue employee who posted the item “without authorization” and “prematurely,” which, if one parses the language, are understood as somewhat contradictory statements.

It’s like, Which is it, Frank? Was it unauthorized, or did someone post an authorized image too soon?

Then came equivocation: “In addition to being Pride Month, June is also recognized as PTSD Awareness Month, Gun National Violence

No, in Winston-Salem — and most of the rest of the nation — June is Pride Month, a time for the LGBTQIA+ community to revel in their identities even as our state pursues legislation that marginalizes or outright denies their existence. And it’s a chance for Winston-Salem to demonstrate to those who make the laws that the city could not and would not function without the LGBTQIA+ folks and the people who support them.

In short, Pride is a time to stand up to homophobic and transphobic bullies, not acquiesce to their petty demands.

by Kevin Six

think there is so much power in music and how it can translate messages across cultures and communities to one another,” says Terrell Dungee, a member of Triad Pride Men’s Chorus.

“It’s always been a goal of our chorus to bring a sense of awareness to LGBTQ+ people in the community. Highlighting their everydayness of being folks who enjoy song and performing for the fellow community.”

On Sunday, June 4, a large gathering at the Emmanuel Lutheran Church in High Point hosted a musical troupe with a mission. The Triad Pride Men’s Chorus and Triad Pride Women’s Chorus had come together in the face of a sharp uptick in hateful legislation against LGBTQIA+ people.

“In the face of all these attacks against queer and trans folks in the community,” said Dungee, “we wanted to lend our voices and proclaim that we’re here to stay. That we’re a part of this community, with humanity with reliance and joy and that’s what this concert is about celebrating.”

Their goal was a weeklong singing tour around the Triad to spread a message of love and acceptance. Their roster ranged from protest songs to queer anthems to music created by queer artists.

“One of the songs that we’ll be performing is ‘This Is Me’ from The Greatest Showman,” Dungee said. “And the real core message of that song is that we are real, we are unique and it’s something we won’t hide from. We actually want to have that be celebrated and the song is in defiance of them being oppressed and that’s kind of how I view this chorus being out here and making joyful noise together as an act of pushing back against oppression.”

Churchgoers and other event attendees greeted them with smiles and words of encouragement before the show as they entered in matching, sparkly black outfits.

Lea Henderson Lagesse, Director of Development for Triad Pride Women’s Chorus, expresses how they have so far felt so welcomed, having performed at Well-Spring Retirement Community the day prior and set to perform at Trinity Presbyterian the following Friday.

“We’ve had wonderful churches and organizations that have been very interested in having us in their space and are welcoming and want to bring us into their conversations,” Lagesse said. “It provides a sense of hope I feel for the community and for the generations in the Triad area. You really see a bunch of people from all walks of life come together to support Triad Pride and their arts programs. Being involved in that really gives me a lot of hope.”

In between each song, members of the chorus were given the chance to tell stories of their experiences living as or having a loved one being LGBTQIA+. These ranged from the funny to the heartwarming to the sadness of experiencing rejection and discrimination. One man spoke of being bullied throughout school for being gay. Years later, he saw his bully bagging groceries at a supermarket and decided to forgive him because he felt that nobody should be judged for what they did as a kid. One woman shared about the pain of losing her mother. Her religious father was deeply in grief, but only a month later, he attended her wedding to another woman with open arms. With each story, candor was rewarded with applause from the congregation, just as they cheered for the beautiful melodies of their singing.

“Our goal is to share that we won’t go back; we’re singing songs of empowerment but also sharing stories about our growing and facing obstacles for being a part of the LGBTQ+ community,” said Janet Villas, President of the Triad Pride Women’s Chorus. “We’ll be telling stories of how we were forced to overcome things that straight people never have to deal with and how we’ve been able to persevere and feel the love and share the love.”

Q&A with Diarra ‘Crckt’ Leggett of Boomerang Bookshop by Sayaka Matsuoka