Windsor-Essex Pride Fest wants you to come see what they’re all about!
Written by Gary May
“2SLGBTQIA+”
Confused? I admit I was. Some of us might find it hard keeping up with recent changes in the gay and lesbian community, a community that describes itself through acronyms that seem to regularly shift.
Windsor-Essex Pride Fest wants to help you understand and organizers say a visit to Pride Fest 2025, August 8-10 at Lanspeary Park, would be a great place to start.
Britt Leroux and her husband John Rey will be there with their kids, aged 2 and 4.
“There’s a sense of family when you walk into that space,” says Leroux. “You hear the music; you see the lights. There’s cotton candy and the cookie place. There’s family fun in an inclusive space.”
Pride Fest wants everyone to know they’re welcome, says board member and community development officer David Lenz. You don’t have to belong to their community to share in the family fun. And if you’d like to learn something about the Windsor-Essex Pride movement, you’re welcome to do that too.
Windsor-Essex Pride Fest is aimed at everyone, says president Wendi Nicholson. “Fun, family, music, glitter and rainbows,” is the way she describes what you’ll discover. “You go in, and you just feel the love. It’s an electric lovefest.”
Family-friendly Pride Fest activities include story-time, craft tables and art tents. Lenz adds that some might have “the perception of flamboyance, the feather-boa half-naked person running around. Which is not our festival. Maybe some rainbows. But just nice people looking to be accepted.”
Windsor-Essex Pride Fest, like those in many smaller Canadian centres, has chosen not to emulate the more flamboyant character of Gay Pride events in larger cities. You won’t find “chaps and leather at our festival,” says Nicholson.
Leroux adds, “This is hometown-Windsor Pride. It’s not like Toronto or Vancouver. These are people just like everybody else.” She says she particularly looks forward to the drag queen story time which the kids love. “And nobody’s going to try to convert anybody,” she laughs.
Other activities directed specifically at the 2SLGBTQIA+ community are planned throughout the city, August 1-7, leading up to the festival weekend and parade.
Okay, so what does that long acronym mean, anyway? It’s a now-widely accepted term among the Pride community covering the various groups that today fall under its umbrella, explains Lenz. While most people understand “G” and “L” stand for gay and lesbian, each of the other symbols represents a term that Pride member groups use to describe themselves. (See the fact box at the end of this article for an explanation).
Windsor-Essex Pride Fest hopes the community will come to support their aims, which include increasing the broader community’s understanding and acceptance. They admit with recent developments in the United States where diversity is under attack, they get nervous about how they’re seen by the public, so they’d really appreciate it if you came to see for yourself and maybe have a chat.
The first Pride week was held in 1970 after a violent police raid on a gay bar in New York, the year after the Canadian government first decriminalized homosexuality. Pride came to Canada, to Vancouver, in 1971 and Windsor joined the movement in 1992. In 1996, sexual orientation was added to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Nicholson and Lenz say society has changed a lot since then. Nicholson says when she was in high school in the 1970s and ’80s, “you didn’t want to be known as gay. When we went out, we all piled in to someone’s car, we’d drop each other off and make sure they got going okay. We were safe in groups. People were getting beat up and killed. It was a scary time.”
For more information check out wepridefest.com
FACTBOX: What does 2SLGBTQIA+ stand for?
2S: Two-spirit, used by Indigenous people to describe alternative sexuality.
L and G: Lesbian and gay.
B: Bisexual, a person attracted to two genders.
T: Trans, an umbrella term covering a range of sexual identities.
Q: Queer, or those who don’t identify as straight.
I: Intersex, or someone born with characteristics not easily identified as male or female.
A: Asexual, a person experiencing little or no sexual attraction.
+: Plus, representing Pride’s openness to other self-identified groups.
