Attendees: Hudson's first Pride signals community progress, despite protesters
A celebration of the St. Croix Valley's queer community drew about 1,000 people to Hudson, Wis.’s Lakefront Park. Event attendees said it was an exciting indication of progress, despite the presence of protesters. The Valley Wide Pride event Saturday was the first of its kind in Hudson.
Matthew Darnold, founder and president of Hudson Pride Co., the nonprofit that organized the event, said the event felt healing for many members of the LGBTQ+ community like him. He said the area has traditionally lacked spaces where queer people could feel fully comfortable being themselves.
"We tried to build a lot of bridges where previously there have been challenges like, you know, we have a church and religious affiliation involvement, we have police presence and involvement. Kind of this light gray area of like … very hard places for LGBTQ individuals," Darnold said. “Truly making it a community event I think was a real kind of strong component of what we got done.”
An estimated 15 protesters showed up early in the event, dressed in black and wearing face masks. They stood outside the fence at Lakefront Park shouting at attendees through bullhorns. They wore shirts and held signs reading phrases like "White Lives Matter" and "Reject Degeneracy."
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Darnold said it was difficult hearing hateful slurs, especially with young people in attendance.
"I'm older and, you know, have my kind of experience of like being able to kind of deflect some of that," Darnold said. "But then realizing, there was probably a lot of youth there that have not heard the slurs in terms like that, and, you know, that's really that's what I'm struggling with the most."
But more than 1,000 attendees who came throughout the day continued to celebrate. Activities at the event included community vendors, kids crafts, Drag Bingo and lots of music.
Cameron Yonan, 22, is from Hudson and works for GSAFE, a Madison-based nonprofit with the goal of making schools more just places for LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin. They returned to Hudson to attend the pride event and said despite the protesters, they felt excited to have a safe environment to celebrate an important part of their identity.
"I went to Hudson High School during a time where people were burning pride flags downtown. There was a kid of my grade who got very badly harassed and like assaulted for being out and queer," Yonan said. So it's crazy to come back four or five years later, and we're having our first Pride all of a sudden, and it's like, safe."
River Collins, 16, came to Pride to work Hudson High School's Gay Straight Alliance booth and feels change in progress at his school.
"The school itself is not the most supportive with names and pronouns, but they're definitely trying to get better with it," he said. "GSA is really nice because there's a little hangout group that we have once every week on Thursdays after school where we all get to just get to hang out and like connect with each other because we're all LGBTQ+, if not allies."
Organizers intend to make Valley Wide Pride an annual event.