Wichita Pride focuses on community and representation

Wichita Pride hosts a Unity Walk in June with their Pride parade and festival held each year in September. It kicks off with motivating speakers. Photo by Robin Dorner.

by Zoe Travers
Journalism Intern

Wichita Pride is celebrating this year with the theme of “Five Decades Forward – Stonewall 1969-2019.”

This year’s Pride is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, which many people recognize as the beginning of the modern LGBTQ+ equal rights movement.

Stephanie Byers, director of communications for Wichita Pride, said Pride should be a celebration of diversity with friends and family, and the Wichita Pride team encourages local communities to create their own observances and celebrations.

“Wherever you celebrate, celebrate with those you love and always remember those who fought for our rights fifty years ago,” Byers said.

Byers is a transgender woman teaching at one of the largest high schools in Kansas, which is regarded as a conservative state.

Last year, she was recognized by GLSEN as the 2019 National Educator of the Year. She received a lot of attention from local and even international media, and she said she felt amazed and overwhelmed at the support from her community in Wichita.

“I transitioned on the job,” she said. “24 years as ‘Mr. Byers’ and the last five years as ‘Ms. Byers.’ I’ve heard from LGBTQ+ students from every high school in Wichita’s public-school system that just knowing I exist has given them hope.”

Protesters from Westboro Baptist Church showed their disapproval at Byers’ high school, and the students and instructors responded by decorating the campus with rainbow streamers.

Although she has been met with support from her community, she knows that, for many people in the LGBTQ+ community, there are stories of isolation and loneliness. Byers said Pride is about bringing LGBTQ+ people together to show they’re not alone.

“I spent 51 years of my life, convincing myself that I would be unwelcome and rejected by all those around me if I came out,” she said. “My experience, though it may be atypical, has been just the opposite. There is peace in simply knowing there is someone else like you.”

Byers said the majority of Wichita Pride celebrations would be focused on community, not necessarily entertainers, pageants, or shows, but just coming together as a community and creating representation to the greater community of Wichita.

Events kick off June 29 with the third annual Unity March at 10 a.m. beginning in the Old Town Plaza and ending in Hyde Park. At 11:30, there will be a family picnic and kids scavenger hunt, an adult scavenger hunt (details TBA) and at 6 p.m., a movie night showing Stonewall Uprising and Love, Simon at the Orpheum Theatre .

In September, events include the Wallflower Dance, roller skating, Wichita Pride opening drag show, youth night at the All-American Indian Center, and the Wichita Pride parade and celebration Sept. 29.

She said Pride is about celebrating together and creating an opportunity for people outside of and unfamiliar with the community to see representation. Byers said acceptance comes naturally through human connection. And that’s what Pride is all about for her.

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Copyright The Gayly. 6/8/2019 @ 7:15 a.m. CST.

Copyright The Gayly. 6/8/2019 @ 3:07 p.m. CST.