‘We love you.’ How family events at Columbia’s SC Pride make the celebration more welcoming
LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations are often seen as a place for adults. But Pride organizers and LGBTQ+ advocates say it can also be an important time for LGBTQ+ youth and families to feel like they are a part of the community, to feel welcome when they might not feel that way the rest of the year.
“Our LGBTQ community is making its own families now. We’ve grown so much and we’ve come such a long way. Marriage equality — we’re all getting married. We’re having kids,” SC Pride President Jeff March said. “So family pride is an important part of our street. We have children in school, and so it’s as much their pride as it is ours.”
This year, Famously Hot South Carolina Pride is back in Columbia after a COVID-19 hiatus, and the weekend-long event has something for everyone. Children and families seeking out experiences specifically for them can check out the Family Pride section of the Saturday’s Pride festival, located near intersection of Washington and Main streets in downtown.
Family Pride will include arts and crafts (non-alcoholic) refreshments, a rest area, (age-appropriate) drag performances, an open-air photo booth and games. Plus, there will be a drag story time featuring local drag king Marty McGuy and three other performers.
Family Pride at the festival is organized by the Harriet Hancock Center, an LGBTQ+ support organization based in Columbia. Volunteers from the organization will be working at the festival and will be available to answer questions and provide resources to anyone who needs them.
“One of the things that I like about the family area of Pride is that not just LGBT families are attracted to coming,” Harriet Hancock Center board secretary Christian Hesch said. “And because of that, you allow them to open the door in an age-appropriate level to their own kids, so if they if they realize one day that maybe they’re part of the community, they know, ‘Oh yeah, I went to family pride with my mom, and I know she’s going to accept me and I can talk to her.’”
In envisioning the Family Pride area, Hesch said she wanted it to be a place where people like herself, a mom of four, could go and enjoy LGBTQ+ Pride without having to have uncomfortable conversations with their kids the next day.
“My wife and I have four kids elementary school age, and I want families like ours to see that they’re not alone in the area,” Hesch said. “It’s critical to recognize that we have LGBT folks in the community and South Carolina generally that are of all different family makeups.
“We’re not just targeting LGBT youth. We’re also talking about targeting LGBT parents. We’re parents. We have kids. We would like to be able to go celebrate our Pride in our family unit with our kids. ... This is about celebrating pride in an entire community, and family is just one aspect and one segment of that community.”
The highlight of Family Pride will be drag story time, put on by Richland Library. Children’s librarian Heather McCue said the drag performances will happen first, and then library staff, including some who are LGBTQ+, will read from a few books over the course of three hours.
This is the second time the library has put on the event at SC Pride, and McCue said that she is thankful the library gets support from the Harriet Hancock Center to make sure drag story time is the best it can be.
“I’ve read statistics about the real harm that’s done to people when they don’t feel like they’re accepted. I think it’s just so important to not only reflect but also celebrate and say, ‘We love you.’” McCue said.
McCue said they chose to have library staff read the books, rather than the drag performers themselves, because she wanted to show that Richland Library is a safe space for children and families to go to long after Pride. By meeting staff who are openly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, McCue hopes attendees will feel more comfortable visiting the libraries in the future, whether it’s to find a queer literature or just read.
“People will not only see these amazing drag performers — I cannot wait — but they’re going to actually get to see their community librarian up there reading. So you have that connection to that stays with you,” McCue said.
McCue said the library hasn’t decided exactly which books they’ll read, but all of them focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Potential options include, “Neither,” a book about being nonbinary, and “Born Ready,” a book about a child who comes out as transgender before he turned 5.
Here’s the schedule of performances and story times:
- Noon — Dandy and Felina Fritz
- 1 p.m. — Dandy and Onya Nerves
- 2 p.m. — Felina Fritz and Onya Nerves
This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 10:04 AM.
