Thousands of LGBTQ+ revelers and supporters lined the streets of downtown Colorado Springs for the annual Pride Parade on Sunday.

Unity has long been one of the prevailing themes of the Pikes Peak Pride Festival’s culminating event — perhaps the only place where church members can be seen marching behind a dozen or so Satanists, with zero confrontations between the two groups.

But among the bubbles, rainbows and Technicolor hairdos lining Tejon Street on Sunday afternoon, several groups were making an effort to address some serious issues facing the queer community.

It’s been about 19 months since an armed attacker opened fire inside Club Q, killing five people, wounding more than a dozen others and imbuing many of the city’s queer citizens with the feeling that they were under siege. Emotions remain raw for many within the LGBTQ+ community, even those who were not present at the club the night of the attack.

That’s one of the reasons the Prism Community Collective recently opened its doors, officials said. The recently-opened resource center was one of more than 100 groups occupying tents and booths at the Pioneers Museum’s Alamo Square Park.

“We’re a resource center for people still feeling the impact of the Club Q tragedy, including but not limited to the LGBTQ+ community,” said program and outreach manager John Arcediano. “There are still a lot of people hurting from the attack, and we want to be here for them.”

Support for the Pikes Peak region’s queer community has made positive strides in the months since the Club Q attack, but more work needs to be done to ensure that the Pride Festival is not the only space where LGBTQ+ people are allowed to be their authentic, unapologetic selves, according to Inside Out Youth Services spokeswoman Liss Smith.

“There have been some cultural changes, I think (since Club Q),” said Smith, who uses they/them pronouns.

“You can see more Pride flags downtown. There’s more vocal support. There’s more of a sense of community than there was. I think our community and our allies are stronger. But there’s still a long way to go.”

The anti-bullying nonprofit Parasol Patrol was present at the parade, selling rainbow umbrellas and encouraging messages. But the main purpose of the Patrol is to identify people or groups looking to spoil the festivities with hateful rhetoric, particularly toward kids.

“I grew up trans, and I was bullied relentlessly,” said Patrol representative Kayti Kline. “I don’t want anyone going through what I went through growing up. We’re here to fill the gap between protesters and kids with our umbrellas.”

Several mental health groups were also on hand at the parade, including Choose to Live, a company focused on discussing the kind of mental health struggles that can lead to suicide.

“We have a problem as a society when it comes to mental health,” said company founder Alicia Nolan, who lost her wife to suicide in 2022. “We don’t talk about it enough. We need to make it OK to talk about these struggles without fear of judgment.”

The mental health struggles in the LGBTQ+ community often stem from people feeling compelled to hide who they are.

“That’s a big part of what Pride is about — it’s the opposite of shame,” Smith said. “We’re always told to be ashamed of who we are, and to hide, and to mask, and to cover. So it’s really beautiful to see our entire community say, ‘No. We’re not gonna do that.’”

While the Pride Parade is an out-loud celebration of the queer community, groups like Pikes Peak Pride, Inside Out and the Prism Community Collective continue to hope for a day, sometime in the future, when their services are no longer necessary.

“I hold on to the hope that one day we won’t need Pride, that we won’t need Inside Out Youth Services to create our own spaces because we’ll be welcome everywhere,” Smith said. “I don’t think we’re close to that yet.”