SLUG @ Utah Pride Parade 2016

SLUGmag


The 2016 Utah Pride Parade painted 200 South with a colorful palette of enthusiastic support for LGBTQ+ Utahns as supporters marched under a proud rainbow umbrella. The three-day Utah Pride Festival culminated in a Sunday morning parade filled with dozens of floats for thousands of spectators.

SLUG Magazine’s bevy of bikers and bumblers passed out magazines, sunglasses, stickers, enameled pins and Death by Salt V compilations. Vinyl drew the biggest reaction from the crowd—not that kind of vinyl, Death by Salt V on vinyl! It’s the fifth in a series of vinyl releases highlighting the best local music Salt Lake’s underground scenes have to offer.

SLUG staffers marched in uniform. This time it was pink T-shirts with a typewriter on the front and the slogan, “everyone’s my type,” on the back, designed by Hey Rooney. As always, a few staffers made creative alterations to these unisex, blocky shirts including opened shoulders, rolled sleeves and scooped necks. One young girl wore her shirt as a tiny dress.

As this pink procession marched along 200 South, the natural ebb and flow of parade dynamics would spread the marchers thin on the street, and then they’d gather in a thick, pink blob of SLUG Mag solidarity for all things LGBTQ+. SLUG cyclists spun tiny laps around the group as SLUG strollers walked among the crowd passing out tchotchkes.

With the legalization of gay marriage in place and more and more anti-discrimination laws enacted, the LGBTQ+ community enjoys unprecedented support, but the current debates over transgender citizens’ access to the bathrooms of their choice make it clear that the fight isn’t finished, and that continued support is needed now more than ever.