‘It’s About Our Humanity’: Freeport Pride Celebration Kicks Off Saturday

FREEPORT, NY — Pride month is getting started a couple of days early in Freeport this year, as Freeport Pride hosts what’s being dubbed a “Harbor Social” from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday along the Nautical Mile.

The social will be free to attend, featuring a live DJ, drag performances by Ivy Stalls, Syn and Ruby Slay, and a series of events that organizers say will create, “an evening of connection, celebration and community visibility.”

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The event will also be held in support of multiple LGBTQ+ community groups, including Gay-Straight Alliances at multiple Long Island high schools, Pride For Youth and the Long Island Pride Lions Club. There will also be kickoff events as early as 1:30 p.m. Saturday at locations along the waterfront, organizers said.

While the celebration is important to the people organizing it, one organizer told Patch there’s an equal importance to the “community visibility” portion of this year’s pride. The support for community organizations that help LGBTQ+ young people, Freeport Pride co-founder Joseph Smith said, is what connects the party to a purpose.

“Yeah, it's great to have a party and a celebration, a safe space is important, all of those are key. But what else?” Smith said. “What else can we be doing that’s, perhaps a bit more intentional, and has a a bit more of a meaningful impact to be in tandem with the party? So it’s like ‘pride with purpose,’ connecting that celebration with community impact.”

The community organizations that Freeport Pride is highlighting this year, Smith said, provide year-round counseling, mental health resources, suicide prevention and other support to LGBTQ+ young people, a population that studies show is at a higher risk of suicidal ideation, self-harm and suicide attempts.

When asked about the importance of giving those young people — LGBTQ+ or otherwise — a chance to attend and celebrate pride, Smith said it’s an effective way to build community. Even people who aren’t part of “the rainbow,” as Smith calls it, will be able to play a role in the construction of a safe place for someone who might need it.

“If they're in the community, this is an opportunity to provide a lot of visibility and I'm also highlighting some issues that may be important to them. So if children or or especially young teens are feeling alone, or feeling like they don't have a space that they can feel like they can be themselves, authentically and fully, or if they happen to be struggling with any mental health issues, this is a space that they can come to,” Smith said. “For either teens or adults that are not in the community, it gives them an opportunity to understand why these spaces are so important, and to support their friends, their family, and their community who really do need this kind of programming and these kinds of spaces.”

As for the people who might need those spaces, when asked if pride feels a bit more urgent given the political climate in the United States, Smith said the organizers of Freeport Pride are “not in the dark” about where LGBTQ+ rights stand in America right now.

The Human Rights Campaign says it’s currently tracking over 750 pieces of legislation aimed at chipping away at the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, while the ACLU says it’s tracking 529 across 44 states. Those bills cover a broad spectrum of LGBTQ+ life, from proposed bans on drag shows to restrictions on healthcare for incarcerated transgender individuals.

None of that is news to the team organizing Freeport Pride, but it is motivation, Smith said. As organizers gear up to celebrate LGBTQ+ identity at a time when it’s under a political microscope, Smith said he was reminded that Saturday’s celebration would be more than that.

“We’re definitely not in the dark about where our country is in terms of just acceptance and rights for LGBT people — with a special highlight on trans youth and trans adults, that experience that they walk and being treated as this other thing,” Smith said. “So it is definitely in the forefront of why we feel it's so important, and part of the reason why it really pushed us over the edge to go, ‘you know what? We need to do something that is taking it that next step further, so that folks can feel like they're holistically taken care of.’ It's not just about the celebration…pride started as a riot. It's not just about that [celebration], it's about our humanity.”

While there's no shortage of political scrutiny of the LGBTQ+ community, Smith said there has also been plenty of support, especially locally.

"We have received an overwhelming amount of support from some of our local legislatives, like Debra Mulé, Judy Griffin, Noah Burroughs," Smith said. "Our village mayor, Mayor Kennedy, has been incredibly supportive."

With that support came a milestone, one that Freeport Pride reached Wednesday: For the first time in Freeport's history, Smith said, the village hung pride flags from the light poles along Nautical Mile.