New Haven Pride & The Necessity Of Queer Joy

Top: Mark Rohrig, who performs as the Connecticut-based drag queen Dixie Normous, and drag newbie London Snow. Bottom: Team members for Anchor Health CT including Ashley Fox, Michael DeWolfe, Juancarlos Soto, Palmer Lavalle and Lucas Valle. For the third year, Anchor is soliciting entries for its zine. Lucy Gellman Photos.

A swirl of synth and piano washed over the corner of Orange and Crown Streets, soaking everything in its path. In the street, attendees had started to multiply, some waving rainbow-patterned flags as others danced it out with umbrellas and rain boots. On the sidewalk, performer London Snow crouched close to the ground, one arm snaking seductively through the air. Just a few feet away, drag veteran Mark Rohrig took everything in, watching a queen come to life. 

Snow, who celebrates her first drag birthday this week, was one of the most delightful surprises at a now-annual New Haven Pride, held as a block party and resource fair outside of the New Haven Pride Center’s (NHPC) 50 Orange St. home and inside it, too. In six hours of live music, drag performances, and a bustling vendor market, it became a fierce call to protect queer joy, even and especially as the federal government continues to attack LGBTQ+ and particularly trans rights. 

New Haven Pride is currently held in September, rather than June, to avoid potential conflicts with New York City, Boston, and a handful of Connecticut Pride events that take place in the early summer (this year, New Haven did hold a flag raising in early June, to kick off Pride Month and fête the 10-year anniversary of  Obergefell v. Hodges). NHPC Operations Director Laura Boccadoro, who has coordinated the event for the past seven years, said that roughly 1,500 people attended. 

Top: New Haven Pride Center Director of Operations Laura Boccadoro (right) and her fiancée, Ashley Buhrer. Bottom: The scene on Crown Street. 

“Every year, it’s like seeing a masterpiece come together,” said Boccadoro, buzzing between volunteers, performers and attendees in a neon green t-shirt. “I have so much gratitude to the community for showing up, even in the rain. This year, I wanted to make sure we were loud and proud. We need that visibility … we’re loud and proud and we ain’t going nowhere.”

This year, she added, it felt increasingly important—and at times, difficult—to protect and nurture Pride as a safe space for the community. This year alone, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has mapped over 600 pieces of proposed state legislation aimed at LGBTQ+ rights and particularly the health and safety of trans youth. 

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration issued a flurry of executive orders attacking LGBTQ+ rights, and public health and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives more broadly on the federal level. Throughout, the City of New Haven has pledged its continued support for the LGBTQ+ community, from sustained funding for the Pride Center in the city budget to a resource guide with local service organizations.    

When NHPC staff began planning Pride celebrations this year, they were also in the midst of a leadership transition, after an announcement that Executive Director Juancarlos Soto would be stepping down in April. That left Boccadoro and a small, already-overstretched team to coordinate with vendors, line up performers, and raise the roughly $14,000 it takes to put the event on.

Since that time, it’s been a year of multiple pivots, all as the Center has continued to serve the LGBTQ+ community in and beyond New Haven. In late July, following an announcement that Yale New Haven Health would be ending gender-affirming care for youth, the center dropped a $2,000 YNHH sponsorship that normally goes toward Pride. Then in August, the Center bid farewell to Lou Perno, who had been acting as interim executive director since April. 

Afro-Boricua Queen Xiomarie LaBeija, who is part of the historic and legendary House of LaBeija. When she's not in drag, LaBeija serves the LGBTQ+ community as Jovanni Cabanas, safe space coordinator at A Place to Nourish Your Health (APNH, formerly AIDS Project New Haven).

And yet, it came together. It always does (indeed, Perno was there as part of a small army of volunteers). Of the nearly 90 vendors present Sunday, Boccadoro said she was excited to report that three quarters of them identified as LGBTQ+.

Nick Bussett, co-chair of the NHPC’s board, said that the board has narrowed its search down to three finalists for the executive director position. He said that the board will likely announce the final candidate in the next few weeks, after a series of follow-up conversations. Until that time, board members have stepped in to help staff keep the space running smoothly so that it can continue to serve the community. 

Sunday, those pivots appeared to have paid off, as hundreds of attendees filled the streets and drag queens like Xiomarie LaBeija, London Snow and emcee Bleach shared the stage with musicians like Old Milk Mooney and Sev7en Taylor. As Bleach kicked off festivities on a corner-turned-stage, Snow stood cozily beneath an umbrella, watching every step in knee-high leather boots, segmented gold bodice and smooth, shimmering cone bra. 

At one point, she mosied over to photographer Linda-Cristal Young, chatting as she shielded both of them from the rain. At another, she posed for a selfie with Gail Giles, a representative of the SGI-USA Buddhist Center nearby, who was trying to convince her daughter to make the trip from Winstead. Every few minutes, someone stopped her to take in the full outfit, which felt like a throwback to the designs that Jean Paul Gaultier made famous in the early 1990s.

Top: Old Milk Mooney performing (not pictured was Co-Op grad Hayden Earnshaw singing along to every word, wrapped in a trans pride flag like a superhero cape, but it was glorious and you'll have to take this reporter's word for it). Bottom: Bleach ("everyone's favorite cleaning product") doing her thing. 

Normally based in Fairfield, Snow began performing exactly a year ago, after watching a friend do drag and realizing that it seemed like a lot of fun. At first, she was sure she’d experience stage fright, nervous to do her thing in front of people. But when she got up there, it was liberating. In just a year, she estimated that she’s packed in about 20 performances. She will celebrate her drag anniversary with another performance at Trevi Lounge in Fairfield this week. 

“It turns out that once I get onstage, everything goes away,” she said with a smile, her mouth coated in vampy black lipstick and somehow still classy as hell, à la 1940s femme fatale. It’s just her, the lights, and the music. “Today is about gathering to celebrate how everyone can be equal and beautiful.”  

Up and down Crown Street and onto lower Orange Street, every attendee seemed to echo that enthusiasm. Beneath a tent for her small arts business Blue Sky Beads, Cheyanne Jade took a moment to soak in the scene, rain and all. A member of the Yaqui nation, Jade birthed Blue Sky Beads roughly a year and a half ago, after teaching herself the craft. The name is an homage to her five-year-old son, Sky Blue, who sometimes works right alongside her.

When she saw that Pride was coming up, she knew that she wanted to be a vendor—and represent for other queer and Indigenous makers who haven’t yet had the opportunity to get the word out about their work. While three-quarters of Sunday’s vendors may have been queer, she added, many of them are also white, leaving a void that she hoped to help fill. 

Top: Artists and partners Isaac Bloodworth and Cheyanne Jade at a booth for Blue Sky Beads. Bottom: Mr. Connecticut Leathers Jordan Lewis, Trell Walters, Ricky Meistre and Ian Scooby Rosman.

“Indigenous representation is important,” she said. “I don’t always see it, especially here in New Haven.”

When she sits down to bead, Jade added, it feels much bigger than just her own story. Beading connects her to a tradition that is millennia old, and filled with ancestral wisdom (it was her aunt, Val, who gifted her her first set of beads over a year ago). “It’s very intensive,” she said: normally, a single piece of beadwork will take her three to eight hours to complete. In advance of Sunday’s event, she estimated that she spent six to 10 hours per day beading.

Her work, delicate and meticulous, speaks for itself. On a display in front of her, earrings of all make and manner invited people to take a closer look: tiny blue beads that formed perfect aquamarine ovals, pink and gold designs that glowed as they dangled beneath the low-hanging gray sky, purple and black long beads that became pearlescent from the right angle. 

“To be out here with love and acceptance” was amazing, she added. Sunday, she had placed wrapped bundles of sage and Sky’s dancing stick at the base of her display, to give passers-by a sense of the deep history and care that goes into each piece. 

Top: Artist Jordan Gage. Bottom: APNH's Tiny cheers on Xiomarie LaBeija. 

Across the street, it was all about the interactions with attendees. At a booth for their small business Chronically Queer Co., artist Jordan Gage welcomed friends Brenda W. and Joshua Barrett, both first-time attendees at Pride. Around the tent, Gage’s line drawings reached out in vibrant, fine detail, filling the space with color. In one, hundreds of red lines overlapped in a clean, perfect circle, nearly vibrating against the white fabric of the tent. In another, on a smaller display, a heart peeked out in bands of rainbow, with a colorblock design that lit up the gray day.  

An artist and writer based in Hamden, Gage started Chronically Queer in 2020, after finding the fine, large-scale line work of New Haven-based artist Tracie Cheng and falling in love with it. At the time, “something clicked inside of me,” they remembered. They began small, with line drawings that bloomed into larger-scale designs and experiments in printed posters and social justice messages that ranged from LGBTQ+ rights to a ceasefire in Gaza.

This year, they’ve woven in calls for a more just immigration system in the U.S., collaborating with groups like Flyers for Falastin and a local fundraiser for Esdrás Zabaleta-Ramirez after the Wilbur Cross High School student was arrested and detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They thought critically, as they still do, about what it means to show up in community, including a basket of free art at every event they vend at. 

Brenda, who hails from Hamden, smiled as her eyes fell over a stout cartoon-like character in striped black and white, with the letters “T4T” written in thick block print across their shirt. 

Top: Joshua Barrett and Brenda W. 

“This is my new spirit animal!” she exclaimed, delighted. “It’s friend-shaped. We all need one of those in our lives.”

Gage’s eyes lit up. “Exactly!” they said. In three years of vending at Pride, the interactions with potential customers—whether or not they buy anything—have become their favorite part of the event. It’s a chance to remember how not alone people are. 

“It’s really just about this time together,” Gage said as the rain picked up for a few minutes, and Brenda ducked beneath a tent nearby. “We are in such scary times that the constant, present reminder of this community is everything.”

Back on the sidewalk-turned-stage, it was Snow’s time to shine. While she hadn’t originally planned on performing, she jumped into a routine, mouthing the words as “It’s Raining Men” turned the corner back to 1982. Within moments, she had sprung up from the ground and was transforming the street into a drag venue, extending one arm to patrons as she twirled into the road. 

Top: Mark Rohrig, who performs as the Connecticut-based drag queen Dixie Normous, with London Snow.  Bottom: Lauryn McGill. 

Rohrig, whose boy alter ego is the longtime drag queen Dixie Normous, beamed, watching Snow’s evolution in real time. Not even a full minute into the song, he pulled out a handful of dollar bills, as if to show other attendees exactly how it was done. With Snow’s help—and to raucous applause—he slid them into her cone bra, where they remained fanned out across her chest for the remainder of the performance.  

Further back, first-time attendee Lauryn McGill had arrived from Hartford, moving along to the lyrics as Snow made it impossible not to dance. A student in organizational leadership, McGill said she attended both “to get out of the house” and to find a safe, social space where she could be herself. 

“I figured this was a space where I could feel a little bit more at ease,” she said. As she danced along, a coordinated vision in chunky pink and purple knits, a rainbow flag fluttered in her hand. 

On the sidewalk, Snow was winding down her routine. Before leaving, she lifted the mic to her lips and smiled at the dozens of people who now filled Crown Street, all of them cheering for her. A quartet of friends, dressed head to toe in original costumes and TikTok cosplay (yes reader, that’s a thing) stood shoulder to shoulder, mesmerized. 

Top: Friends Flynn Romano, Caesar Wilson, Nevaeh Lugo, and Salem McCarthy. Bottom: Gail Giles.

One of them, Salem McCarthy (“Salem’ like the witch hunt and ‘McCarthy’ like the other witch hunt,” they said with a tight smile), bopped along in an outfit largely inspired by the use of lavender as a symbol in the LGBTQ+ movement. “I’m just really gay,” she said when asked what had brought her and her friends out.

“Do not be afraid,” Snow said, seemingly heeding those words as she finished. “Use that voice and use that power.”

Around the corner, those words resonated still. Beyond pop-up stations from Anchor Health, Possible Futures and Mahjong Haven, ceramicist Lisseth Martinez greeted people at a table for what she calls “Lizzethables,” a collection of ceramic mugs, small dishes, magnets and handheld pieces that she makes at the Edwards Street pottery studio Wet Clay Works. Before her time in New Haven, Martinez grew up in Florida, and then lived on the West Coast for several years. 

After moving to New Haven with her wife, Yale grad student Sara Hollar, Martinez knew she wanted to be involved in the city’s Pride celebrations. When she’s not crafting, she works at the Trumbull Street bagel shop Olmo, which for years has collaborated with the Pride Center during National Pride Month in June. Hollar, meanwhile, is starting her doctoral work in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale. 

“I love seeing the community that I live and work in out here being themselves,” Martinez said. “It’s scary to be alive … it’s nice to be seen.”   

Top: Sara Hollar and Lisseth Martinez. Bottom: The one and only Karleigh Webb. 

As Martinez welcomed a new group of passers-by, journalist and steadfast trans advocate Karleigh Webb floated down the street, filming a short video with the poet Prometheus Brer. For her, she said, the event wasn’t just a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility, but a reminder of the necessity of joy and of community. Without one, she explained, the other doesn’t exist. That’s what has kept her raising her voice in support of the trans community in and beyond New Haven for years. 

“Life is beautiful, especially in these times,” she said. “I’m out here trying to keep trans people alive. ‘Happy Pride’ means something different now. It’s a sign of defiance. It’s a needed sign of defiance. I didn’t transition to hide.” 

Back at a booth for DJ Edgewood, Bleach checked the time: it was almost intermission, which meant there were three hours to go. She smiled to herself: she was having fun, rain and all. 

Born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Bleach came to Connecticut for college over a decade ago, and ultimately earned a degree in linguistics at Southern Connecticut State University, where she has returned to perform for queer students who are just finding their footing. After years of teaching Spanish at James Hillhouse High School, she realized that she wanted to pursue a longtime dream of becoming a professional drag queen. She quit her job and has been performing ever since. 

Top: Bleach. Bottom: Blue Orchid owners Michael Flora and Natthawut (Kyu) Tipjak, partners in life and work, who celebrate the restaurant's fifth anniversary on Oct. 4.

Sunday, she strutted across the corner in a fiery orange leotard and tutu, lipstick and liner thick around her mouth as a spray of hot pink curls erupted from the crown of her head. By 3 p.m., she had somehow made time for an outfit change, gliding through a lip-synced performance of "And I Am Telling You" that had attendees singing along and handing out impromptu hugs along the way. At no point, it seemed, did she stop moving, the rhythm of her pumps recognizable by the end of the day.

“Whenever I work Pride events, I receive a lot of love from audience members and people that came out to have a good time,” she said. For her, Pride is a full-circle moment: she was just 19 when she attended her first Pride in downtown New Haven, when it was still on Center Street by Gotham Nightclub. “I like to have a fine balance between hosting and being silly, and saying, ‘Hey, let’s remember where you come from.’” 

For her, this year also felt like a needed do-over, she said. Last year, “my experience got a little bit taken away from me,” she said. Pride celebrations were more subdued, a byproduct of heavy afternoon rain that made the stage unusable. None of the performers were able to strut their stuff. When she saw Sunday’s forecast, she hoped for clearer skies. They delivered.  

“If anybody ever expresses misery, I tell myself, ‘That person made a conscious effort and decision to be mean.’ Not even mean, uncivilized,” she adds. “It’s not about us trying to prove a point,” she continued. “It’s like, ‘We still exist.’ You think that we are not screaming it? But we are still screaming it.”