I had the gigantic honor of being invited to lead Zion National Park's Pride Parade at their first ever Pride event in the park. I got connected to the park through the local LGBQT+ community, since I've been leading group hikes for them.
The parade doubled as a service parade, and we cleaned up trash along the trail as we went. My heart is so full.
I was a little nervous beforehand - part of my role as lead was to help with morale. Southwest Utah is very conservative politically, there's been a lot of pushback ageist having a visible queer community, and many attempts to legislate against queer friendly events and businesses. I was worried about the potential for protestors, and also - I'm outgoing, I love being social, but I'm also very introverted and it was a push for me to get outside my comfort zone to prepare and lead call and responses and chants and songs for the group to use along our route. Thankfully, it was a great and engaging group and the energy was great and it went really well and was incredibly rewarding.
After the parade we had a bunch of other events, hikes in the park, a Pride festival, craft activities, local speaker, and a big reception. I got to speak and connect with rangers from the park, catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a while, and otherwise just had a rad time.
