Portland Pride: Back to the Past

As this year's Pride Festival and Parade go (mostly) virtual, we take a pictorial stroll down memory lane.

June 8, 2021

K.B. Dixon

Culture, Photography

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY K.B. DIXON

The bad news is, like most large events, Portland Pride’s Waterfront Festival and Parade has been cancelled again this year because of Covid. The good news, however, is that the organizers have stepped in once more with an impressive slate of Zoom, YouTube, and in-person events, including a virtual parade, to hold the sequin-starved over until next year. A list of those events, beginning on Saturday, June 12, and running through the 2021 Virtual Pride Parade, on Sunday, June 20, can be found at the Pride’s website. Among the items scheduled you’ll find: Zoom drag queen bingo; virtual Pride couch concert; two days of queer films outside at The Lot at Zidell Yards; Portland Gay Men’s Chorus virtual concert; a premiere from Resonance Ensemble of a collaboration between composer Mari Esabel Valverde and librettist Dane Figueroa (Lady Dane) on a work about transgender sisters of color. Check the link for details and a complete schedule. (Unfortunately, I see, the Diva Drag Brunch is already sold out.)

The photographs here are from celebrations past. They allude, I hope, to celebrations future.

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Motorcycle, 2013

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Top Hat, 2013

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Love, 2013

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Fan, 2017

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Trio, 2014

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Stars and Stripes, 2014

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Portland Playhouse A Christmas Carol Portland Oregon

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Throne, 2016

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Hello, 2016

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Sax, 2016

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Tut, 2016

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Robe, 2017

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Leather, 2017

K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals. His most recent collection of stories, Artifacts: Irregular Stories (Small, Medium, and Large), was published in Summer 2022. The recipient of an OAC Individual Artist Fellowship Award, he is the winner of both the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Eric Hoffer Book Award. He is the author of seven novels: The Sum of His Syndromes, Andrew (A to Z), A Painter’s Life, The Ingram Interview, The Photo Album, Novel Ideas, and Notes as well as the essay collection Too True, Essays on Photography, and the short story collection, My Desk and I. Examples of his photographic work may be found in private collections, juried exhibitions, online galleries, and at K.B. Dixon Images.