For years, people in Asheville have asked for a festival during Pride month.
The city’s largest annual Pride festival, Blue Ridge Pride, traditionally happens in September which has disappointed some people looking to celebrate Pride on the June anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
This year, organizer Butch Thompson is making people’s wishes come true, bringing a June Pride festival back to the city for the first time in decades. AVL Stonewall Fest debuts this weekend with three days of music, drag performances and dance parties to downtown Asheville.
The festival centers the importance of Pride celebrations at a time when transgender rights are facing renewed political challenges, said Thompson.
“This year, it finally just clicked,” Thompson said. “Many people were asking for it and the political climate that has been going on in the last couple of years has just really taken a turn. I felt it was important that we really show up.”
In North Carolina, some of the recent political challenges have included a state law that limits discussion on LGBTQ+ topics at public schools and restricts gender-affirming care for trans youth. As recently as this week, the U.S. Department of Education launched a federal inquiry into Buncombe County’s bathroom policy for transgender students.
“This is not a time to be violent but it's a very big time to be vocal,” Thompson told BPR. “We need to educate more people about what’s going on within the political system and how we're, I think, sometimes being used as scapegoats in a lot of ways just to rally up more fear amongst certain people.”
The festival gets its name from the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, fought back against a targeted police raid. The six-day protest is considered a turning point in the gay rights movement and led to the first-ever Pride celebration in New York City the following year.
For Thompson, connecting Asheville’s Pride celebration to Stonewall felt important as both a celebration and a reminder of how much work remains.
“We're actually going to have a banner where people can write messages about Stonewall,” Thompson said. “We'll be reading our Stonewall manifesto that we wrote which is all about taking back control of our voices.”
The activities begin Friday with an opening party at The Radical Hotel, followed by a Stonewall drag show at O.Henry’s. The main festival runs Saturday from 2-8 p.m. at Asheville Yards and will feature local drag performer Devin Divine, as emcee and a musical performance from Lyric. On Sunday, festivities will close out with a drag show and a dance party at Banks Ave.
Thompson said he hopes attendees leave feeling welcomed, included and more aware of Asheville’s LGBTQ community.
“We're trying to be inclusive. We're trying to give people the opportunity to come out and live their authentic lives and not be hidden in the closet, as we say, because of fear,” he said. “You shouldn't have to fear who you are.”
