From Staff Reports
At a time when the LGBTQ community across the country is under attack from our own government — from city to county in some places, all the way up to state and national levels — Dallas Pride’s 2025 theme has a special meaning: “Pride Is My Right.” And the two-day Dallas Pride event gives the community a chance to celebrate all that Pride means in every way — from showing up to showing out.
“In a time where LGBTQ+ rights are increasingly being challenged and infringed upon across the nation, and even within our own communities, this theme serves as a resounding declaration,” organizers said in a written statement.
“We cannot be complacent as fundamental freedoms are questioned and marginalized,” the statement continues. “Dallas Pride 2025 is a call to action, an unwavering affirmation that Pride is not a privilege but an inherent right belonging to every individual.
“Join us as we stand together, amplify our voices and emphatically declare: Pride Is My Right!”
Award-winning actor/writer/director/producer RJAY is this year’s Dallas Pride grand marshal. RJAY is active throughout the DFW area in a variety of LGBTQ events.
This year’s honorary grand marshal is AEW wrestling star Anthony Bowens, known as “The Pride of Professional Wrestling.” He is a former AEW World Tag Team champion and AEW World Trios champion.
Representatives from Sally Beauty are headed to the company’s home state to work in collaboration with Free Mom Hugs for the second year in a row to hand out up to 1,000 gift cards (while supplies last) and other freebies during the festival on Saturday.
In addition to popping up in Dallas, Sally Beauty will be highlighting Pride founders on the company’s website and social platforms, including XMOMDO founder Brad Mondo, Kaleidoscope founder Jesseca Dupart, Celebrity stylist and Sally Beauty hair expert Gregory Patterson and more.
Both days of Dallas Pride take place inside Fair Park, located at 3809 Grand Ave. Parking is available at Gate 2 and Gate 11. The DART Green Line drops riders off and picks riders up at the front gate, with light rail service from 6 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and from 9 a.m.-midnight on Sunday.
Dallas Pride starts Saturday, June 14, with the Music Festival, which includes vendor booths and a full line-up of entertainment on multiple stages in The Automobile Building and on Big Texas Plaza and Family PRIDE Zone and TEEN Pride in Grand Place. Festival vendors will be open from 11 a.m.- 7 p.m.
There will be more than 200 vendor booths for attendees to browse through and shop at, and local animal groups will also be on hand with furry friends who are looking for their forever homes.
Entertainment starts at noon and runs through 8 p.m., taking place on both an indoor stage and the outdoor main stage. The Drag Kings of Big D kick off the day’s entertainment at noon, followed at 1 p.m. by The Round-Up Saloon Girls. At 2 p.m. the show cast from Hamburger Mary’s Dallas takes the stage, followed at 3 p.m. by the Crush Show cast. The line-up continues with The Queer-Off at 4 p.m.
At 4:45 p.m., drag performer Daya Betty takes the spotlight. She is a veteran of RuPaul’s Drag Race, having appeared first in the 14th season, then returning this year for the 10th season of Drag Race All Stars, which is currently underway.
At 5 p.m., the cast of The Rose Room performs, with Jorgeous, a San Antonio native and also a Drag Race queen, coming on at 5:45 p.m. to wind up the entertainment.
Jorgeous also competed on season 14 of Drag Race, and in the ninth season of All Stars, Jorgeous is also competing in the 10th season of All Stars, airing now.
Advance tickets for the Music Festival on Saturday are available online now through the Dallas Pride website, DallasPride.org, for $14, which includes a $4 service fee. Tickets will also be available at the gate. Kids ages 12 and younger are admitted free of charge.
The vendors part of the festival continues on Sunday, open from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Automobile Building and on Big Texas Plaza. Vendor booths close at 2 p.m. when the annual Dallas Pride Parade steps off to wind its way around the Cotton Bowl and through Fair Park.
Admission to the festivities on Sunday is free.
For more information on Dallas Pride and to see maps of Fair Park, parking areas and the Sunday parade route, visit DallasPride.org.
Another FREAKSHOW!
Two Prides, One Broken Mirror
My Dallas Pride Experience
Pride is supposed to bring us together. It’s meant to be more than just glitter, floats, and hashtags it’s a declaration of survival, of joy, of defiance. Pride is about community, about connection. It’s about seeing yourself in the people around you and feeling like, for once, you belong somewhere. But in Dallas, we celebrate two Pride parades one in June and one in September and somehow, even with all that celebration, we still feel further apart.
I’ve been going to Dallas Pride since I was 17 years old. Back then, Cedar Springs felt like the center of the universe. It was the first place I saw people who looked like me, loved like me, moved through the world like me. I remember walking through the crowd, overwhelmed and wide-eyed, watching drag queens own the street like royalty, and feeling for the first time seen. It wasn’t just a party; it was a lifeline. It was home.
That was September Pride, our local tradition, held in the heart of Oak Lawn. The gayborhood. A place that raised me in more ways than I can explain. A place where chosen families were built, where love felt safe, and where survival didn’t always have to feel so heavy. I’ve marched, danced, cried, healed, and grown on those streets. September Pride always felt real. It was for us. Raw, messy, soulful exactly what Pride was supposed to be.
But now I’m 41. And just this past Sunday, I went to my first June Pride in Dallas. After more than two decades of being part of this community, I finally decided to see what the city’s other Pride celebration was like. I wanted to feel connected. I wanted to feel that spark again. Instead, I left with a heavy heart.
June Pride, held at Fair Park, is big, loud, and full of energy. It’s polished. It’s organized. And it’s packed with major sponsors and corporations waving rainbow logos. But for all its size and spectacle, it didn’t feel like it was for us. It felt distant. Sanitized. Like it was curated to be safe and marketable for everyone except the people who’ve actually lived the struggle.
I didn’t see the soul of the community I grew up with. I didn’t see our elders. I didn’t feel the weight of our history. I didn’t feel the sense of family that once made me fall in love with Pride in the first place. I saw celebration but not connection. Visibility but not unity.
And that’s the deeper problem. Dallas has two Prides, but both seem to be drifting away from what really matters. September Pride is losing its roots gentrification is swallowing up the gayborhood. The Cedar Springs I knew is slowly disappearing. The people who built it, the ones who made it sacred, are being priced out, pushed aside, or forgotten altogether. The bars are still there, but the heart is fading.
And June Pride? It’s colorful, loud, and shiny but it doesn’t feel like it sees the entire community. The queer kids sleeping on the streets. The Black and brown trans folks still fighting for space. The aging HIV survivors. The ones who don’t fit the “Pride aesthetic.” The people whose queerness has always been more than a trend or a photo op.
We throw two parties a year, but still don’t know how to truly show up for one another.
Two Prides. One broken mirror.
I keep thinking back to that 17-year-old version of me, standing on the sidelines of his first parade, heart pounding with hope. He thought the world was changing. That maybe just maybe he had found a place to belong. If he could see it now, would he still feel that magic? Or would he feel like a guest at something that was once sacred?
I’m not writing this out of bitterness. I’m writing this out of love. Because I want better for us. I want the next generation to feel the pride I once felt not just on parade day, but every day. I want our community to remember its soul.
Pride isn’t just a celebration. It’s a responsibility.
It should be about the forgotten. The unseen. The ones who are still fighting to be heard. It should be messy and honest and uncomfortable and healing. It should make room for every voice not just the ones that fit the narrative.
We don’t need more sponsors. We need more truth. We need to protect our spaces. We need to look around and ask: Who’s missing? Who are we really celebrating? And what are we willing to fight for now?
Because until Pride in Dallas becomes more than a parade until it becomes a place where we all truly belong it’s just noise. And we deserve more than that. We always have.