The Southern Pride Queer Pride festival starts Monday, June 19, and this year the event is a week-long celebration hosted at various locations in Little Five Points.
In this feature, “City Lights” senior producer Kim Drobes caught up with Avery Willis, the disability liaison and outreach coordinator for Southern Fried Queer Pride, to get more information about the festival.
A team of WABE reporters take a deeper look at the issues affecting LGBTQ people in Georgia. Plus, LGBTQ Atlantans in their own words, Pride events calendar, LGBTQ coverage from other NPR stations across the South and more.
Southern Fried Queer Pride (SFQP) is an Atlanta-based organization empowering Black queer and QTPOC-centered communities in the South through the arts, and the festival is their biggest event every year.
“It was created by Black and brown queer and trans folks here in the heart of Atlanta. We wanted to see ourselves be more represented in the Pride celebrations around us.” Willis said. “A lot of times, the faces that you see in media are more white faces or cis-gendered faces, and it’s very easy to feel a little lost. And Atlanta is such a home to Black ingenuity and Black creation and art, and we wanted to make sure that we are showing ourselves in the same way. ”
This year’s events include a Cinequeer Film Night, the Hawt Sauce dance party, a movement workshop, an artist market, a variety show, a pop-up thrift market and a self-defense and community safety workshop. One of the festival’s most popular offerings is the annual drag pageant, aka The Peach Pit Pageant, where competitors vie for a crown, a cash prize and bragging rights.
The drag competitors will have three categories: a presentation showing a look of their own construction or their own design, a Q&A portion where they’ll share their personality and thoughts, and a talent portion.
“Usually, that ends up being a lip sync because that’s the core of what drag is,” said Willis. “But we’ve had people do a miniature ‘how-to’ onstage, we’ve had people dance, we’ve had people share art, we’ve had people do poetry.”
The winner every year goes on to complete programming with Southern Fried Queer Pride.
“It’s one thing to say that a space is open, but it’s another thing to actively reach out and bring in people.”
Avery Willis
Another signature highlight of the festival is the Sweet Tea Queer Variety Show. This year the variety show is at the Star Bar.
“Sweet Tea is Atlanta’s longest-running queer variety show,” says Willis. “It’s usually our biggest event of the festival, outside of the dance party… we’ve had comedians, we’ve had poets, we’ve had dancers and rappers and singers.”
Although the event was created by and for the LGBTQ+ community, everyone, no matter how they identify, is welcome.
“It’s one thing to say that a space is open, but it’s another thing to actively reach out and bring in people,” Willis said.
The Southern Fried Queer Pride 2023 Festival is happening for a whole week from June 19-25 at various locations in Little Five Points.
More information about this year’s Southern Fried Queer Pride Festival is available here.
This story is part of the ongoing series Beyond Pride, in which WABE reporters take a deeper look at the issues affecting LGBTQ people in Georgia. Plus, hear LGBTQ Atlantans in their own words, check out a Pride events calendar running through the fall, LGBTQ coverage from other NPR stations across the South and more.
