Pictures of Pride Fest

Who says Detroit can’t be fabulous?

For the fourth year in a row (coincidentally, also my fourth year of being out of the closet), I went with a group of my most heteroflexible friends, and we went off in search of Michigan's gay pride festival, a place where everyone gets to be Queen for a day.

I loved it so much that I had to go back and take pictures. All of these were taken at Motor City Pride Festival in Hart Plaza, in downtown Detroit, MI.

Meet Susan DeNies, she’s the one in the rainbow denim. DeNies’s first LGBT event was in Colombus, Ohio, nearly 12 years ago. When one of the students at the school where DeNies used to work came out of the closet, she decided to show her support by marching along side of him.

“He didn’t have any support from any family members, so I went with him” said DeNies, standing in front of the textile vendor booth that she and her husband were working in. DeNies is familiar with the midwest LGBT pride scene.”You meet nice people,” she said.

The vendors at Motor City Pride were as diverse as the crowd. Gay-friendly chruches set up shop right next to the athiest pride booth. There were vendors selling clothes, hats, collectibles; and for the brave hearts at the festival, some vendors sell kilts.

William Gardner is a proud vendor of Michigan’s finest quality kilts. He sells the traditional Scottish garments with a hearty smile, and a giant banner that reads “Got Kilt?” Grand Rapids native Theodore Rosenberg endorses the kilts full-heartedly. “Now that I’ve got one, I’m planning on getting more,” said Rosenberg, “They’re very comfy.”

What does the Detroit LGBT scene have to do with traditional Scots? “I’m not exactly sure,” said Gardner, “The Eagle Bar in Detroit used to have a kilt night?”

The LGBT costumes came in all shapes and sizes. Some costumes were meant to stun, such as the strikingly pink hair of Angela Staysmooth, a transgender performer; or the orange feather dancing outfit and the Michael Jackson look-a-like costume, used by performers on the Stilettos stage.

Staysmooth is a dancer who chose to match her pink hair with a blue tank top and a tu-tu made of rainbow colored pastel fabrics, “Mostly because it’s dramatic… I love dramatic!” A veteran transexual dancer, Staysmooth says she was nervous the first time being on stage, but that the feeling passes with time.

“I’m a transexual. I’ve been dressing up for years now.”

Dan Wiest

Other costumes, like Dan Wiest’s prison jumpsuit, are meant to send a message. Weist is working with Amnesty USA, a human rights organization that advocates an end of LGBT discriminating laws, among many other human rights issues. Weist calls his costume a form of “street theatre… there are people who are in jail for being gay… me and my orange jumpsuit are representative of that.”

The best costumes, however, did not come from a vendor, from a social injustice, or from a dazzling onstage performance. The best costumes of Motor City Pride came straight from the heart, like classy dresswear of straight-but-supportive Nickolaus Ludavicius, or the simple, yet eye-catching, costume of long time pride fest attendee, Stephanie Baker.

Baker, who was there with her wife Glo, wore an elegent black dress, complete with a two foot pair of rainbow feathered fairy wings.

“So last year, they were selling these fairy wings, but when I got there [to the vendor], they were gone.” Baker said she went home and found a bigger pair online at Cafepress, and decided to buy them.

Baker said she prefers to express herself visually as well as verbally, and the clothes she wears at Motor City Pride give her an opportunity to do that. “I’m a lesbian, I love who I love,” said Baker, “I can say that with the wings.”