This weekend, Carrboro invites you to follow the Pride Piper

COMMUNITY NEWS

June marks the beginning of Pride Month, and Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee said in a recent press release proclamation that the town has a lot to be proud of.

Pride Month commemorates the June 1969 Stonewall Riots, in which gay patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York fought back against a police raid. The June 3 proclamation recounts some of Carrboro’s history of supporting the rights of LGBTQ people:

The first municipality in the state to create a domestic partner registry in 1994.
Among the first to support same-sex marriage.
Adopting a 2021 ordinance prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations and employment
Electing a gay mayor in 1995, followed by 28 years of LGBTQ+ mayors and multiple LGBTQ+ aldermen and council members.
Consistently high scores in the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index, which grades cities and towns according to their laws and policies regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

Currently, the town council members include Catherine Fray, the first nonbinary person to be elected to office in the state of North Carolina, and Eliazar Posada, the first openly LGBTQ Latino elected in North Carolina.

Dance to the Pride Piper

This year, the town has merged its Pride Dance Party with El Centro’s Pride celebration, Orgullo Latinx. It kicks off at 4:30 p.m. with the Pride Piper Walk. The town’s press release invites you to “help roll Rainbow Ram down Weaver Street from El Centro Hispano to Town Commons.” Orgullo will include “food, dance, and frolicking,” as well as food trucks and resources for the local LGBTQ+ community.

If you’re attending, you can find convenient parking on the Drakeford Library Complex’s parking deck. The press release reminds everyone planning to attend that Carr Mill Mall’s parking, including the Weaver Street and Harris Teeter lots, is reserved for mall customers. Leaving your car there and then exiting the parking lot puts your vehicle at risk of being towed.

El Centro’s website says it’s “the largest Latino-led organization in North Carolina, dedicated to supporting all people across Durham, Wake, Orange, and surrounding counties in the Triangle and Piedmont regions.” Its activities include economic development, education, and community health.

Swimming against the tide

Carrboro has stuck to its LGBTQ-supportive guns in the face of an increasing wave of anti-LGBTQ efforts at higher levels of government. Earlier this month, for instance, the federal Department of Health and Human Services published its proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. The proposal includes $520 million for 988 suicide-prevention lines, but ends funding for LGBTQ-specific counseling, which is currently available to 988 callers who request it.

“The General Assembly continues to target LGBTQ+ people,” the Pride Month proclamation says, “through laws such as House Bill 574, which prevents trans youth from participating in middle and high school sports; House Bill 808, which bans best-practice medical care for trans youth; and Senate Bill 49, North Carolina’s own ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill which were all vetoed by North CarolinaGovernor Roy Cooper and later overturned by the Republican members of the General Assembly.”

The proclamation reaffirms Carrboro’s and Chapel Hill’s opposition to “discrimination, prejudice, homophobia, and transphobia, and we share a commitment to creating a place where all are welcome.”

Fraser Sherman has worked for newspapers, including the Destin Log, the Pensacola News-Journal and the Raleigh Public Record. Born in England, he’d still live in Florida if he hadn’t met the perfect woman and moved to Durham to marry her. He’s the author of several film reference books and has published one novel and several short story collections. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocal Reporter.press