This year’s Pride parades in New York and San Francisco on June 26 coincide with the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage the law of the land. What had been thought of as celebratory events, though, are now being reconceived as the realization sets in that the landmark advance has been overshadowed by the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The parades close out Pride month but kick off a busy calendar of events with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes that are intimate enough, even with added security in place, to balance fellowship with fun. Here’s a curated look at several of them, from bisexual theater to transgender swims, to keep the gay times going all summer long.
JULY
“Hot!” New York City’s longest-running performance festival celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (July 5-Aug. 6), returns to Dixon Place in Manhattan for its 25th year with an out-there roster of dance, theater, comedy and other performing arts. Among the highlights are “Hyperbolic! (The Last Spectacle),” a multidisciplinary musical work by the choreographer and musician Monstah Black that promises “pretty-glam gore” in its imagining of the last party on earth, and “Ignorance Is No Excuse, Reno,” a comedy and spoken-word piece by the lesbian-feminist comedian Reno.
Several communities of color celebrate Pride with their own events over the summer. This year’s festivals include Chicago Black Pride (July 1-4); Miami Beach Brothaz (July 14-16); Charlotte Black Gay Pride (July 16), in Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland Latino Gay Pride (July 29-31), in Portland, Oregon; New York City Black Pride (Aug. 17-21); and Atlanta Black Gay Pride (Aug. 30-Sept. 5).
Gay storytellers take the spotlight in “Solo Celebration!” a new series of one-person shows at the Greenhouse Theater Center in Chicago. The festival, which continues through February, will feature productions of “MotherStruck!” (through July 17), a comedic stage memoir (and an off-Broadway hit) about pregnancy and raising children by the lesbian performer and poet Staceyann Chin, and the premiere of “I Do Today,” a drama about bisexuality, kabbalah and modern marriage by the playwright Sarah Myers (Sept. 2-Oct. 9).
Look through any gay magazine, and the pages will be filled with a certain kind of body — built, hairless, young, usually white — that, like it or not, has been in vogue since gay men have been, well, gay. (You’re not immune from this obsession either, straight guys.) And that’s where bears come in, to demonstrate that hotness comes in all sizes. The gay community’s big guys convene in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the eclectic beach community at the tip of Cape Cod, for Bear Week (July 9-17). Events include pool parties, dances, a cruise, various contests involving large amounts of body hair and, of course, late-night slices at Twisted Pizza, Subs and Ice Cream. Bears like carbs.
Who says you need to be on land to celebrate Pride? Sea Tea, New York City’s gay party boat, offers cruises throughout the summer that cater to almost every kind of gay scenester. This summer’s offerings include a reunion for employees and fans of the popular Chelsea gay bar Splash, which closed in 2013 (July 17); a fundraiser for the Gay Officers Action League, an organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender police officers (Aug. 7); and a special cruise celebrating the drag-and-performance festival Wigstock, hosted by the subversively funny drag queen Lady Bunny (Aug. 21).
The group Homo Climbtastic, a group of rock climbers, hosts what it calls “the world’s largest queer climbing convention” in Fayetteville, West Virginia (July 21-24). The annual event, which also includes hiking and camping, is for experienced outdoor climbers, so be sure you know what a soft catch or jug haul is before you sign up. And no drama queens allowed. At least that’s what the group’s website says: “If you decide to drag a big ol’ sack of crazy with you or decide to get your feelings hurt and spin into a drama spiral, we will not ask you to come climbing with us again.”
Tango has always been an art form friendly to same-sex couples. (Alaistair Macaulay, the dance critic of The New York Times, has written that one possible origin of the tango is in the brothels of Buenos Aires, where men danced awaiting their turns for sexual assignations.) Queer tango festivals have been a staple of New York for a while, but it’s in Europe where same-sex couples have really been infusing the dance form with a gay spirit. One locus of the gay tango movement is Berlin, which this summer hosts an International Queer Tango Festival (July 28-31). The event will feature workshops and gender-mixed milongas, informal gatherings of tango dancers from across the gender spectrum.
While most Pride parades in the United States take place in June, cities in other countries hold theirs over the summer. Among the locales with parades in July are Paris (July 2); Bogota, Colombia (3); Munich (9); Barcelona, Spain (9); Berlin (23); Stockholm (30); and Vancouver, British Columbia (31).
AUGUST
The International Gay and Lesbian Football Association — as in the football played with your feet, not your hands — will hold its world championship in Portland, Oregon (Aug. 6-13), the home of the Portland NetRippers, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender soccer club. Teams are divided into male, female and mixed divisions. Players and spectators of all sexual orientations are welcome.
“GayFest!” an annual theater festival in Philadelphia, returns for its sixth iteration (Aug. 12-27) with plays about gay men and their roller-coaster relationships. This year’s offerings include “Harbor,” a comedy by the Tony Award-nominated writer and lyricist Chad Beguelin (“Aladdin”) about a gay man and his troubled relationship with his sister, and “My Favorite Husbands,” a comedy by Andrew Marvel involving a drag queen and a Republican wedding.
Pride takes on especially overt political tones in North Carolina this year, the most high-profile state to become embroiled in controversy over bathroom use and the transgender community. The state is facing boycotts from musicians as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Itzhak Perlman, as well as gay and lesbian travelers, over a new state law that limits transgender bathroom access and pre-empts local governments from passing their own anti-discrimination ordinances. The law will be on the minds of audiences at the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Aug. 12-20), which takes place at the Carolina Theater of Durham. Joe Student, the theater’s director of live events, said that he anticipated an outpouring of support from filmmakers and the gay community in Durham, a liberal town where Student said the legislation has little support. “It’s a nonstarter here,” Student said in an interview. “It’s strange to see it creating an issue in other places.” Highlights include the lesbian romance “AWOL” and “Kiss Me, Kill Me,” a contemporary gay noir.
It’s been a big year for gays and Cons. In January there was the debut of BroadwayCon, a theater-related event that returns to New York next year for Round 2. In May there was RuPaul’s DragCon, an all-things-drag convention that will be back in Los Angeles in April. This summer, New York will experience superhero fandom from a gay perspective at the second annual FlameCon (Aug. 20-21), described by organizers as a celebration of “the diversity and creativity of queer geekdom and LGBTQ contributions to pop culture.” Set to be held at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, the event will feature panels, exhibitions and interviews with comic-book writers and artists, including Phil Jimenez (“Super Woman”), Steve Orlando (“Midnighter”) and Sophie Campbell (“Jem and the Holograms”), who recently came out as transgender.
Several kink and leather events happening this summer are reminders that the more sexually libertine corners of the gay world remain vital, even as same-sex marriage suggests that the gay community’s main flavor is vanilla. The biggest of these is Southern Decadence (Aug. 31-Sept. 5), a debaucherous round-the-clock party that mostly takes place in the gay section of the French Quarter of New Orleans. Now in its 45th year, the festival, much of which is free during the day, features dance parties, parades, concerts, drag queen performances and contests (with guidelines unfit for a family newspaper).
August Pride events around the world: Amsterdam’s Canal Parade for Europride (Aug. 6); Montreal (8-14); Prague (8-14); Antwerp, Belgium (10-15); Copenhagen (16-21); Glasgow (20-21); and Austin, Texas (27).
SEPTEMBER
Thanks to Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, the lives of transgender women are in the national conversation more than ever before. But transgender men remain much more under the radar. Hoping to bring visibility to the community in a small way is Transmission (Sept. 8-11), an annual gathering of trans guys at a private retreat in the woods of Upper Lake, California, about two hours north of San Francisco. Activities include meditation, swimming and lots of discussions about life as a transgender men.
Credit big-spectacle shows by singers like Britney Spears, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, but in recent years Las Vegas has increasingly become a vacation destination for the gay community. Case in point is Gay Days Las Vegas (Sept. 6-12), a weeklong festival, now in its fifth year, that includes pool parties, shows and a travel-and-retail expo. Past events have included a Most Kissable Guy contest and twerking competitions, so consider yourself warned.
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