Pride festivals held across the nation every June to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community are known for pushing the edge of societal norms by flaunting the outrageous.

Event-goers are likely to encounter counter-cultural outfits, behavior and experiences.

The activities typically take place in public parks and on streets and are billed as “family friendly.” That’s causing pushback from critics, who say the label is false advertising laced with underlying motives. Organizers argue it’s an accurate description and having diversions that appeal to kids is part of the overall fun.

Pride Above the Clouds in Woodland Park last weekend featured face painting, bubble play, puppet shows, sidewalk chalk art and enticing swag such as rainbow-motto umbrellas, bracelets and stickers.

“Rainbow Youth Square” at this weekend’s Pikes Peak Pride in downtown Colorado Springs is offering a karaoke contest, a foam party, a silent disco, drag story time readings, an art contest and more.

But alongside the scene’s frivolity and fevered pitch, adults and children can see drag shows on stage, people wearing scant clothing and accessories such as nipple clamps, kissing and butt spanking, fetish-related references and booths selling phallic-shaped merchandise like keychains and plush toys.

Drag shows at past gatherings in Colorado Springs have included the use of a stripper pole with at least one performer displaying a sex toy, videos show.

Stage presentations are a form of artistic expression, said Jessica Laney, a transgender woman and president of Pikes Peak Pride.

“If there’s something we think might be a little bit more risque, we put it later into the evening deliberately, when most families are possibly gone by then,” she said. “It’s all perfectly legal and within bounds.”

But some say these are indicators that the line of appropriateness has been crossed.

“Pride has inherently been a movement about sexual liberation. Unfortunately, we’ve seen it appropriated and colonized by people who think they’re teaching tolerance, but they’re actually sexualizing children,” said Rich Guggenheim, a Republican candidate for state Senate District 25 and director of the Colorado chapter of Gays Against Groomers. The advocacy organization opposes gender-identity curricula in schools, drag events for minors and gender-affirming care for youth.

Laney disagrees.

“It is 100% family-friendly,” she said. “We have stuff for youth because there are LGBTQ+IA youth, so we’re providing programming for them as well. We’re trying to serve all the population.”

Not only has Pikes Peak Pride grown by 5,000 people a year over the past five years, with this weekend’s expected attendance at 40,000, but the number of vendors and other supporters also has increased substantially to more than 100, Laney noted.

“It’s not San Francisco; we’re not trying to sexualize it or make it bad for families,” she said. “We don’t think it’s G-rated, but I don’t think it’s R-rated by any means. There will be some PG stuff, but nothing worse than you’d see at the beach.”

Organizers can’t control what people wear, and Pride events can’t be policed for people’s appearance or behavior, said Shirley Logan, a co-founder of Pride Above the Clouds by Teller Pride, which was held June 6 at Woodland Park’s main public park.

“These are events where queer people can be who they are. They can dress who they are,” she said. “We can’t tell people we’re having a Pride event but leave your pride at home. We’re all individuals and have the right to adorn ourselves as we choose.

“If you’re offended by what you see, these events are the very few days in the year where we can be out and be loud and be proud and be ourselves completely.”

Setting aside religious differences on LGBTQ+ issues, the concept of Pride is sexualized at its core, said Jeff Johnston, culture and policy analyst for Focus on the Family, a Christian media and communications organization based in Colorado Springs.

“Pride events are all about celebrating sexual identities, attractions and behaviors — that’s the focus. So, children will inevitably see displays of adult sexuality and confusing sexual messages,” including promotion of polyamory and polygamy, he said.

“You can dress it up in glitter and rainbows, but it’s still not kid-friendly,” said Johnston, who describes himself as having had same-sex attractions and a pornography addiction before “walking away from homosexuality” through counseling and support from his Christian faith.

Local Pride organizers say they are aware of the complaints and concerns.

As a result, you won’t find any drag queens or kings presenting story time at Pride Above the Clouds, which has become a common attraction at other festivals.

“We always intended it to be kid-friendly. A few people wanted to have drag queens reading books. But we were met with opposition by parents on that, so we chose to not do that,” Logan said.

Pride Above the Clouds was founded three years ago in part because the Teller County Mental Health Alliance had identified LGBTQ+ as being most at-risk for suicide, said Ashlee Shields, who describes herself as an LGBTQ+ ally and works as the transformation manager for Teller County for ChangeLine, a public health improvement organization.

“Our message is you belong here. You are seen and you are a valued member of the community. There is a supportive community in Teller County, and we hear you,” she said.

Logan said in the 35 years she lived in Teller County, she faced some “pretty horrid experiences,” such as harassment that included destruction of personal property over her identifying as a lesbian.

“We felt it was important people in Teller County knew we were here, we were queer, and we were not going away,” she said. “In order to make that happen, we needed to have a party in the park.”

Pride supporters think the opposition has gone too far. In August 2024, Colorado Republicans ousted state party chairman Dave Williams after he sent an email blasting Pride Month and on social media called for all Pride flags to be burned.

In the wake, complaints about Pride events not being family-friendly have been dismissed, some say.

Independent local journalist Jordan Baldwin, a contributor to The Peak News, asked Manitou Springs City Council last August to reconsider its permitting of the Manitou Springs Pride Fest because of what he filmed that he described as being considered adults-only in any other public setting.

City Council members who responded said that the festival was nothing other than a regular summertime gala where people enjoyed themselves.

After a minor child used a blowup doll as a prop on stage at Manitou Springs Pride Fest in 2023, Baldwin created a video that went viral. He filed a police report and a report with child protective services alleging what he thought amounted to child abuse. Nothing much happened, Baldwin said, though an alleged child drag ring came to light, which police said they handled.

“There’s a lot of people even within the Pride community who are outraged over what’s happening beyond these events not being family-friendly,” Baldwin said. “It’s way kink, and people don’t want to address it. I feel like it’s falling on deaf ears.”

Laney of Pikes Peak Pride said one of the biggest objections she hears is over funding. However, she notes, her all-volunteer organization does not receive any tax money paid for by Colorado Springs citizens to produce Pride events.

The organization does get a cut of the Lodgers and Automobile Rental Tax, or LART, which is a tax collected from visitors who stay at local hotels or rent cars. The group received $15,000 from that fund this year, which Laney said represented a 75% decrease over last year.

Pride banners on street poles and other promotional materials and expenses are paid for by private donations, she said.

Mayor Yemi Mobolade will attend the weekend’s festival, said city spokesman Max D’Onofrio, as he has done for the three years he’s been in office. He will issue a proclamation of recognition at the event.

For the second year, Colorado Springs City Council did not issue a proclamation for Pride as there were not enough votes to do so.

Organizers say Colorado Springs Pride revelers are much more modest than celebrants in bigger cities.

“Pride is for anybody, as long as you come with an open mind,” Laney said. “Pride is a protest because we’re here to be visible. We’re citizens of Colorado Springs, we deserve the same rights and freedoms to be able to express ourselves and live how we want: freely. That’s why we still need Pride.”

To which Guggenheim of Gays Against Groomers replies: “My rights are housing, employment, marriage. I challenge anyone to show me where my rights are under threat. The greatest threats are coming from people pushing the ‘TQIA’ agenda.”