Attendees were greeted by a blow-up rainbow arch to walk under and a smiling person to check them in by giving them a shimmering purple bracelet. The festival was held at Provo’s Memorial Park and was free for all to attend. It was also family friendly with an after party for people 21 and older held in the evening, which over 100 people attended.

About 98% of the performers and vendors were somewhere on the transgender spectrum, according to Ian Giles, founder and executive director of Genderbands. He said organizers wanted to make the event different from other pride festivals by ensuring that people on the trans spectrum had a chance to participate.

Last time the festival was in person, in 2019, there were just over 200 people who attended. It was marked by two food trucks, a picnic table and a phone plugged into a speaker. “That was Pride, and it was fantastic. It was a very family vibe, almost like a family reunion kind of vibe, which is really cool,” Giles said. This year, there were over 600 people who attended, dozens of live performers on a stage, pop-up tents for vendors to set up their booths and food trucks lining the street.

However, even though the event was much larger, Giles said, “I was actually still surprised with how much of a chill community vibe there was even with all of that. … It didn’t feel like this massive festival that’s just really overwhelming and everybody’s disconnected. It felt like everybody knew everybody and everybody was supporting everybody.”

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

The park was dotted with people holding small bouquets of flowers, which were given away by a small business called Little Gay Garden. June Hiatt, who owns the flower business with her girlfriend, Hillary McDaniel, grows and cuts them fresh for each bouquet.

Little Gay Garden had a booth at the festival to give away free bouquets of flowers, set up with a flower backdrop to take photos. Hiatt said they gifted over 250 bouquets to people in attendance, all of which were paid for through donations from members of the community and were assembled by friends who wanted to help.

“We just wanted to give people flowers,” Hiatt said. “I think a lot of times, a lot of people just don’t ever get flowers and I think they’re such a nice, simple way to show someone love. So we wanted to just give away as many flowers as we possibly could today and shower people with love.”

The community financially supported the bouquet giveaway and supplies needed through the purchase of a bouquet from Little Gay Garden for $10. Hiatt said, “We got so much support. Two hundred and fifty people were like, ‘Yeah, I’ll spend $10 to support someone I don’t even know and just want to show some love too.’ So we got lots of support. This was definitely a community project.”

Hiatt added that some of the money raised from the bouquets sold before the festival will be donated to Genderbands.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

Justin Young, who attended the festival, said, “I’m really glad that there’s more stuff happening outside of Pride Month because most companies are just, like, gay for a month and then forget about it.” They explained when the support is mass produced for Pride Month, “it doesn’t even mean anything.”

Giles said doing the trans pride festival at this time of year was intentional. June was busy with many other festivals, so Genderbands wanted to give people attending them the chance to attend all without having to choose between them. The weather was also cooler than in July, it gave people a break from the commotion of the other festivals and most people are back from vacation with school starting these next few weeks.

“The closet is really cramped during the rest of the year,” Young said. “I really like being able to come out and just be gay and spread my agenda.”

Outside of the park were four protestors with signs and a megaphone, reading from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” a proclamation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They attempted to go into the festival but were stopped by security and police officers, who took the megaphone. However, the group continued reading and holding signs on the border of the park for more than half of the festival.

While some of the people attending the festival shouted jokes at the protestors, Giles said they advised them to ignore the group. They said no one from the festival was mean, and they brought water to the protestors at one point during the festival.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

Giles added that it was “weirdly exciting” to have protesters. They explained that due to the small size and history of the festival, they were not expecting protestors. So the fact that protestors knew the festival was happening and stayed so long was exciting because, to them, that meant the festival was large enough to warrant protestors.

“It’s like we’ve made it. We have haters now; that means we’ve made it,” Giles said with a laugh.

In addition to the other activities offered at the festival, there was a chill zone that provided people who were overstimulated or overwhelmed with a place to decompress. The chill zone was a tent with an air conditioning unit, water, snacks, fidget toys, Play-Doh and other sensory activities.

A consent booth was at the front of the festival, giving people who were interested a badge with different colors and signs on it to signal their boundaries in terms of being comfortable with hugs, touch, talking or their picture being taken.

Giles said they received immensely positive feedback from people for the chill zone and the consent booth. The entire festival was also wheelchair accessible and a sign language interpreter was provided for the performances. “I want the festival to be accessible to everybody because Pride is for everyone. So, we need to make our festival accessible to everyone,” they said, explaining that meant physically, financially and food-wise. “We are really making efforts to make sure that everybody is able to come and enjoy Pride.”

Giles said they wanted to publicly thank all who made the festival come together, including everyone on the planning committee, volunteers, vendors, sponsors, performers and the community. “It was a massive feat and would not have happened without every single person involved,” they said.

Donations made during the festival and after-party went toward gender-affirming care and transition grants that Genderbands provides to youth and adults across the United States, Canada and Mexico.