Event celebrates gays’ diversity, sense of fun

Miss Esta Bunny" shivered in a red satin robe and flowery swim cap.

He was recovering from being repeatedly dunked for charity at yesterday's Circo Paradiso, Gay Pride Virginia's Annual Pride Festival.

It was $5 a pop to get a chance to drop drag queens into a large tub of water, and it proved to be a popular event, said the dunkee, whose real name is Charles Dishman.

Yesterday afternoon, several hundred people wandered through the event's new location next to Diversity Thrift on Sherwood Avenue on Richmond's North Side.

The Miss Capitol City Gay Pride winner, Angelica Spalding, also known as Jason Seaborne, wore a tiara and posed for pictures as fans surrounded him.

Kristen Smith, 24, attended the festival with her girlfriend, another friend and their three American bull terriers, but they didn't much care for the event's location.

"I feel we're stuck back in a corner," Smith said. "If someone doesn't know where it is, you wouldn't have any idea it was here."

The first two festivals were at the 17th Street Farmers' Market in Shockoe Bottom.

David Ryder, one of the founding members of Gay Pride Virginia, said the festival had outgrown that site. The new venue is bigger, with an acre and a half outdoors and more than 40,000 square feet indoors for vendors and food concessions.

Ryder said he expected 7,000 to 10,000 attendees. He said the festival was a way for all the different groups in the gay community -- lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender -- to come together.

"In the 1960s, we had a lot more strength," he said. "We identified ourselves as one large holistic community. We lost a lot of that momentum when we became an acronym -- LGBT."

You don't have to be gay to support the festival, Ryder said.

"Anyone interested in protecting civil rights and against writing hate speech into the state constitution should come to the festival," he said.

Jessa Cowherd, 23, Smith's girlfriend, said she enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere of the festival.

"It's nice to see a lot of people in the gay community that I am not familiar with," Cowherd said.
Contact Linda Dunham at (804) 775-8126 or .