Music. Dancing. A parade. Rainbows around every turn. Calgary Pride is a vivid, overwhelming experience that takes over the downtown core and Prince’s Island Park right as summer winds down.
But Pride wasn’t always this kind of spectacle. On June 18, 1990, it was several hundred masked gay activists, labour movement allies, churches, and feminists gathered in Central Memorial Park.
“It was pretty small, but it was very important in drawing attention to the fact that we didn’t have full human rights in this province,” says gay activist Nancy Miller.
As a member of the Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild, Miller helped coordinate this rally. “The acronym was CLAGPAG, which we took a lot of ribbing over,” she says. “At that time, people could lose their jobs for being homosexual. You could lose custody of your kids or get kicked out of your home. We needed to hide our identity for our safety, so we wore Lone Ranger masks. It was important to make it accessible for people.”
The following year, following a controversial proclamation from then-mayor Al Duerr declaring June 16 to 23 as the first “Gay Rights Week,” the first Calgary Pride Parade occurred on June 16, 1991. Roughly 400 people marched down Stephen Avenue to City Hall.
“I remember, very, very vividly, hundreds of counter-protesters,” Miller says. “One guy brought his pit bulls to circle us in the Plaza and intimidate people. On the march, somebody lunged at a drag queen… and I believe the drag queen swung back!”
Remembering this hostility serves as a reminder of Pride’s purpose. “It was important for us to make clear the message that it was a political event,” says Miller. “Our existence was political, and our wanting rights was political.” The march was capped off with a
speech by B.C. New Democrat MP Svend Robinson, one of the first openly gay members of parliament. “It was a cloudy, crummy day. And as he’s up there, right in front of a microphone speaking, the clouds parted and a sunbeam came right down,” Miller remembers.
Calgary’s famously fickle weather is why our Pride events now occur at the end of August. “We always had it in June, right up until 2009,” says Calgary Gay History Project researcher Kevin Allen. “Then, Pride had an administrative collapse. New people came in to take it over, and they wanted better weather.” According to Pride’s website, 2009 was the year that Calgary Pride transitioned from a grassroots collective to an incorporated non-profit society.
Since then, Calgary Pride has experienced exponential growth. “In its early days, Pride was a protest and assertion of our demands for equal rights,” says Allen. “Now it’s a celebration, though there are still political undertones.”
The 2023 Pride Parade featured more than 200 groups marching and over 100,000 spectators. “It’s crazy how long (the parade) is and how many Calgary corporations, nonprofits and public sector employees are marching… So it’s a wonderful thing but a really different thing.”
Allen paints a picture of queer courage in his work for the Queer Map, a Calgary Atlas Project brochure available at local bookstores that maps Cowtown’s gay landmarks, from the Pansy Club to the Cecil Hotel. “I think there’s something about Calgary’s entrepreneurial spirit that is reflected in the gay community; they had a can-do attitude to create gay spaces in the ‘70s and ‘80s.”
This year, Pride is creating even more gay spaces. Alphabet Mafia is Calgary Pride’s first-ever art show at The Grand and SpanicArts. “Alphabet Mafia is dedicated to bringing in art, performance, drag, and fashion,” says Pride’s manager of production and programming, Sumit Munjal. “One feature exhibit that we’re bringing to the table is Rainbow Elders, to highlight their contribution towards the 2SLGBTQ+ movement within Calgary.” They also plan to bring a pop-up exhibit from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights called “The Purge” to The Grand Theatre and Calgary Central Library next year, focusing on the Government of Canada’s systematic persecution of queer people from the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and public service.
Queer rights remain in the crosshairs of our provincial government today, which is why it’s more important than ever for Calgary Pride to be inclusive and visible. “It’s not one person’s prerogative or right to determine how Pride should move forward,” says Munjal. “Our priority is bringing an intersectional lens to every single layer of what we do as an organization and working with an advisory council in the future so that individuals from marginalized communities bring their voices to the table.”
Whether cheering at the parade or dancing at Prince’s Island Park, Calgary Pride’s festivities reflect what makes this city unique. “The Calgary story can still be out loud and proud: we can still be cowboys, cowgirls, and cow-monarchs,” says Munjal. “It’s about embracing Calgary’s past and making space [for Pride] in the clearest way possible.”
Calgary Pride hosts events from August 26 to September 1. Find more details at calgarypride.ca.
