Shobhit and I went to Alki Beach Pride yesterday. To say that this event is small-potatoes compared to other Pride events this year would be an understatement—certainly compared to World Pride, but even compared to other Seattle Pride events. To be fair, we're always there pretty early on in the day; it's possible things get more exciting, if nothing else then on the one main stage, later in the afternoon.
The event lasts from noon to 8:00, after all. On the other hand, when the Capitol Hill Pride Festival happens during the same stretch of hours on the Saturday of Pride Weekend in June, Broadway is pretty packed within, like, half an hour.
Alki Beach Pride is not put on by the Seattle Pride organization, though; it's its own thing, which kind of makes it more like a smaller-town or regional Pride event. This makes sense, being out in West Seattle, which, while being part of Seattle proper, is on a peninsula and largely isolated from the rest of the city. I think a lot of people living out there feel like it's still kind of their own town. It also makes sense for them to hold this event in August every year rather than in June (although they are never consistent about which weekend in August they do it), because a beach Pride event in Seattle will never have as reliably nice weather as it will in August.
All that said, I think the stage entertainment, if nothing else, is likely to be a lot better much later in the afternoon, and I have a history of getting out there pretty early on in the day when I go. Shobhit and I got out there yesterday at about 1:45, having killed some time by shopping at Costco on the way. I didn't make it last year because it was on the same day I was returning from the Co+nvergence conference in the Twin Cities; but in 2024 we arrived just before 1:00; in 2023 at about a quarter after 1:00; and in 2022 at about a quarter after 3:00—but 2022 was the first year with events again after covid, and there was some confusion about whether we had even come on the right day of the weekend. There were only like two booths on the beach when we went that year, the first year I went.
Maybe next year I should aim to get there at, I don't know, 4:00 or 5:00 p.m.? I can't find any stage schedule online to confirm my theory, but we are only ever there strolling the booths along Alki Avenue for about an hour—that's precisely how long Shobhit and I were there yesterday—and that's maybe not quite long enough to give it the chance it needs.
We did run into
King County Executive Girmay Zahilay while we were there; Shobhit introduced himself as a constituent. There was also a couple of Seattle City Council members there; all of them were being introduced on the stage just as we were passing by again to leave. Shobhit kind of spun out a little bit after this, as he let it made him feel like a "loser," all these people who had won elected office after Shobhit lost in the City Council primary in 2023. There was a whole host of factors behind his not winning that primary, none of which had anything to do with his adequacy as a person (though some had to do with his qualifications and particularly experience at the time), but there was no use in bringing any of that up, so I didn't. He just kept saying things like "Fuck.
Fuuuck" to himself in the car as we drove away.
Zahilay, incidentally, was taking pictures with with his family in front of the huge Pride "T❤️GETHER" sign as we passed it shortly after our arrival. I decided we could try and get our own picture on our way back, as it was taking too long to wait for others at this point. There was actually a perfect opportunity, with none at the sign, when I saw it walking back through the booths on the nearby street again, but Shobhit insisted on getting to the north end of the booths first. When we turned back to go get a photo of the sign, there was once again a bunch of people ahead of us getting photos. I didn't feel like waiting a long time, so I just settled for a fun photo of
Cheer Seattle (who probably did a performance on the stage at some point) posting with it instead.
I did spend $125 while I was there, though: one of the first booths we stopped at, probably within the top 5, was for an organization called
Stone Soup Crew, which feeds unhoused people on Capitol Hill. One of the two women at the booth told us this includes trans refugees, and she identified herself as a trans refugee (this term, I found, is not found on their website). They had lemonade and vegan cupcakes at their table, along with information on how to donate. The vegan cupcakes,
made with Oreo cookies as their base at the bottom, were delicious, and apparently made homemade by the woman on the right behind the table. She didn't talk as much. I asked how to pay for the cupcakes, and the woman on the left said we could just take one. Shobhit and I took one to share, and I scanned the QR code that took me to their Venmo, but I figured I would look into how much to donate later.
But, as we were headed toward the south end of the line of vendor booths, Shobhit asked me if I had already donated, and I said no. I didn't know how much I should, but somewhat to my surprise, Shobhit suggested $125. This was because we had been told at the booth that this was how much it took to cover a week of their program. When we worked our way back again, we went back to their booth, and I showed the trans woman the Venmo transaction on my phone. "So I'm taking another cupcake!" I said, laughing.
The woman was very touched, though. She said, "You're beautiful" with her hand on her heart as we walked away—though that was not the first time she said that to us.
If nothing else, I suppose this just goes to show how effective having a booth or a presence at one of these events can be. Shobhit and I had never even heard of Stone Soup Crew, even though they do their work at Cal Anderson Park, which is only a few blocks from our condo. Not only do we know who they are now—and even know of a place to donate some clothes we don't need anymore—but we have them $125. Hopefully they got some donations from some other people too.
Anyway, Shobhit has now come to Alki Beach Pride with me three times; Laney twice. This makes
four times total that I have gone; apparently it was an annual event even before the pandemic, but I never heard of it until 2022. I had made plans to make this a Happy Hour with Laney, which would have resulted in us hanging out on the beach for at least a while, as we had in both 2023 and 2024. But, due to Laney's back pain issues, which it sounds like are improving but very slowly, all planned social engagements with her are on indefinite hold. Maybe next year? I should make actual notes about this in my calendar for next year: hang out on the beach! Go over later in the day!
This does finally mark the final Pride event in Seattle for the year, finishing up
the Seattle Pride 2026 photo albums collection with 11 albums, tying with
the record made in 2024. (I only managed 10 last year.) The random extra thing that got me to that number this year was the World-Cup "Pride Match," which barely qualified as a Pride event, but it did; all the other 10 have occurred before, which probably means that for a while at least, as long as no scheduling conflicts prevent me from making it to any, I'll have 10 Pride albums each year by default.
I guess it's safe to say that Pride Season is officially over. I mean, Seattle Pride was basically confined to June, and especially its last weekend; after that it was Tacoma Pride in July and Alki Beach Pride in August—but also the many World Pride events we just went to in Amsterdam. We won't do World Pride again until 2028, which we learned at the World Pride March when speaking to one of its organizers will happen in October and not February as originally expected. World Pride usually coincides with the host city's usual annual Pride events, but we were told the weather is more reliably nice for international travelers in October than in February. I just looked this up on Wikipedia, and the average high in February in Cape Town is 82.9°, and the average high in October is 72°. So, I'm kind of baffled by this, unless maybe they think it'll be too
hot for international travelers in February? (Which, south of the equator, is spring—and Cape Town's latitude south of the equator is comparable to that of Los Angeles north of it.
Aha! I found some
new information: I guess it's less to do with the weather, and more to do with aligning with South African queer history: the first-ever Pride March in South Africa, which actually occurred in Johannesburg, was in October 1990.
It will be interesting to see how this necessarily makes World Pride Cape Town differ from other World Pride events, though. At every other World Pride event we've been to, the World Pride Parade was that city's regularly scheduled annual Pride Parade. Will World Pride Cape Town not have a parade, then, since they'll have already had their local Pride Parade in February? That would be my suspicion. I don't know how that GayTravel4u website has World Pride 2028 scheduling information not yet posted to the World Pride Cape Town
website, at least as it currently exists, but I suppose I should take it with a grain of salt; still, that lists only a World Pride
March, and not a parade. But, it does have a bunch of other stuff, like parties, the expected World Pride Village, and more.
[posted 8:47am]
