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The Network of Social Justice is teaming up with other organizations this June to bring a variety of events to Winchester for Pride month.
The organization will be hosting five Pride events throughout the month while partnering with the Family Action Network of Winchester (FAN), the First Congregational Church of Winchester and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
The first Pride event NSFJ will be hosting is a collaboration with FAN. FAN is inviting Winchester families to paint businesses’ windows in the town center with Pride decorations and messages.
This event runs from June 3 to June 10. Attendees can register for it through FAN’s website.
From now to June 14, the First Congregational Church of Winchester will be hosting the Family Diversity Project’s Building Bridges exhibit.
The exhibit features photography of immigrant and refugee families and includes photos discussing how anti-queer rhetoric leads to displacement.
PRIDEfest to be student run
This is the sixth year that NSFJ has hosted a PRIDEfest, a student-run festival celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. This year it will be on June 11, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and the rain date is June 12.
NSFJ Executive Director Rebecca Slisz wanted to echo the idea of “not about us without us” by making the event student-led.
“Students should be at the forefront of bringing this event to the community,” Slisz said.
The event is for all ages and features 15 to 20 organizations from around Winchester, including clubs from the high school and McCall Middle School. The always popular drag queen Maxine Harrison will be the emcee.
The event hopes to bring in 200-300 people.
Alix Ke , a graduating senior and this year’s president of the high school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance, is the student who was chosen to organize PRIDEfest this year. As lead organizer, he has been working on outreach, setting up the donation page and improving the organization system for future PRIDEfests.
Ke also set up a meeting with McCall’s Queer Straight Alliance to ask for middle schoolers’ input.
The main message of the PRIDEfest is inclusion and keeping up a “welcoming spirit” that the LGBTQ+ community is known for, said Ke.
“I feel like there’s a sense of separation, and everybody feels a little isolated,” Ke said. “So seeing all these people willing to gather and help and celebrate is really heartwarming.”
First Tea Dance
The newest addition to the pride events is the Griffin Museum’s Tea Dance event on June 14. This is the first year this event has been hosted.
Historically, tea dances were a way for queer people in the ‘50s and ‘60s to circumvent laws that prohibited bars from serving queer people alcohol. These gatherings started in New York City before spreading across the country.
The dances remained a prominent part of the queer movement until the ‘90s, although they have resurfaced in queer vacation spots like Fire Island and Provincetown.
The event was inspired by the Griffin’s Executive Director Crista Dix’s experiences at tea dances held at the Boatslip Resort & Beach Club in Provincetown.
Dix would go down to the bar in the ‘80s every weekend for the sense of community. She moved away from Boston, but came back to the area six years ago and hasn’t been able to go back down to the Boatslip.
So she decided to bring the tea dance to Winchester.
“We want to provide a joyful space for individuality and acceptance in our shared community,” Dix said. “The tea dance celebrates all of these things with exuberance and fun.”
The event is open to all ages, and Dix hopes they’ll get at least 100 people at the dance.
Tickets are free to anyone under 21. Anyone who is above 21 is encouraged to buy a $25 ticket with proceeds going towards both the NSFJ and the Griffin Museum.
Arlington Brewing Company will be providing both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks, and Harrison will be performing a DJ set.
The money from tickets will go towards supporting the Griffin’s educational programs and exhibits, as well as the NSFJ’s outreach and programs. Dix hopes to raise around $5,000 to $10,000.
Tavishi Chattopadhyay is a journalism student at Boston University.
