Austin comes out for AUSTIN Pride
Video produced by Mikaela Casas, Caroline Touma and Kris Seavers
Story by Kris Seavers
AUSTIN, Texas – As the minutes ticked closer to 8 p.m. last Saturday, Sept. 20, hundreds of motorcycles, pick-up trucks, Fiats and one MetroRapid bus lined up on San Jacinto Boulevard. In one block, a police Hummer sat idle only feet away from a life-sized Fleshlight dancing atop a parade float. Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” blared from a pair of speakers as a group of young women sprayed hair products into each other’s pink and purple wigs.
At the corner of 12th Street and San Jacinto Boulevard, an uncountable number of people, including Millenials and babies in strollers, sported white t-shirts with the rainbow outline of an apple printed on the front.
The 2014 Austin LGBT Pride parade commenced last Saturday with more than 9,000 participants, twice the number of registered participants in last year’s parade. Almost half of those participants – as many as 3,500 – were Apple Inc. contingents, marking the first time the company has participated in a pride parade outside of San Francisco.
Christina Rose, an Apple employee who participated in the parade, said she was happy to see Apple “coming out” for the event and supporting members of the lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender community.
“As an employee, I just think it’s genuinely amazing that there’s that many of us out here to support the community inside of Apple and just the community as a whole,” Rose said, “so I’m really excited.”
At 8:04 p.m., the parade began, turning the corner onto Congress Avenue against a peaceful backdrop of the Capital building. Thousands of Austinites lined the sidewalk, calmly anticipating the parade. Texas State University sophomore Angela Jenkins, who attended the parade with her girlfriend, stood among the crowd.
“I feel really comfortable and accepted at pride,” Jenkins said. “[In Austin] there’s already such a supportive culture there that people like to come out and celebrate being gay.”
This was Jenkins’ third Austin Pride parade, and she said that she has noticed more and more corporate sponsors every year. She also said she noticed the increase in corporations representation at the Pride festival in the Fiesta Gardens, which precedes the parade and includes drag queen performances and local vendors. Large corporations like Facebook, Dropbox and of course Apple, set up tables alongside local businesses like Deep Eddy Vodka and Rain on 4th.
“The Apple representation is pretty interesting,” she said. “I think it’s amazing because it shows how acceptance of the gay community is becoming more mainstream.”
Someone who didn’t know better might think Apple was the main event at the Pride parade. The procession of white t-shirts stretched for more than three blocks, many employees handing out gift cards for one free iTunes song. Apple CEO Tim Cook chimed in on Twitter.
“A shout-out to 3000 Apple employees and their families marching in the #AustinPride parade! Inclusion inspires innovation. #applepride,” the Tweet read.
In the ongoing national conversation about gay rights, Apple is both making its stance clear and putting the spotlight on Central Texas. Jenkins said to her, this is good news for Austin’s gay community – and the gay community at large.
“It reflects back to how our country as a whole is changing and becoming more accepting and aware of gay rights,” Jenkins said.
Portions of this story and the accompanying video were published on orangemagazine.co