West Hollywood has long been home to many LGBTQ folks in the Los Angeles area, with more than 40 percent of residents identifying as such. It’s only fitting that each year the city has hosted its own Pride Month festivities, and the latest one was its most epic so far! Thousands of folks poured into West Hollywood for WeHo Pride 2024 to enjoy the street fair, concerts, and more. 

The weekend, which spanned from May 31 to June 2, was full of social events, pride parties, and a mega three-day musical festival headlined by none other than Ke$ha, Janelle Monáe, and Kylie Minogue. To capture all the fun, TransLash Media sent actress, activist, producer, and motivational speaker Blossom C. Brown to document all the celebratory love and glamor. Here’s everything that went down at WeHo Pride.

Watch our recap video and read more below!

Day 1 of WeHo Pride: Friday, May 31

WeHo Pride kicked off on Friday night with a free concert in West Hollywood Park. Ke$ha performed as the headliner, while audiences got to enjoy performances from Adam Lambert, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Monét X Change, Laganja Estranja & Morphine Love Dion, Niña Dioz, Jessica Betts, Owenn, and Venessa Michaels, according to CBS News. 

The concert also marked Ke$ha’s first show since she became a “free woman,” as Rolling Stone reports, after settling her decade-long lawsuit with Dr. Luke last summer.

Day 2 of WeHo Pride: Saturday, June 1

For those who prefer a more low-key Pride Month activity, there was the WeHo Pride Street Fair on Saturday afternoon. The eight hour family-friendly fair, stretched along Santa Monica Boulevard, featured a handful of community group booths, vendors, exhibitors, and even some performances by Bonnie McKee, Rêve, The Aces, and more.

After that, the Women’s Freedom Festival took place, which was presented by the historically lesbian non-profit, L-Project Los Angeles. The festival, which was in its third year according to CBS News, featured emerging LGBTQ and BIPOC women, non-binary musicians, comedians, poets, and activists.

Jackie Steele hosted the Women’s Freedom Festival, which featured plenty of performances throughout from KingQueen, MariahCounts, Medusa, Theia, Gattison, Cheri Moon, Shiah Luna, Nekeith, DJ SterlingVictorian, DJ Boom Boom, Suri Chan, and Jen Cheng.

Why We Need Queer Women Representation

Being able to attend the Women’s Freedom Festival on Saturday was a key highlight of the weekend for Blossom. “The representation of queer women in West Hollywood is so crucial and important. We have to amplify these types of voices, as they usually go unheard and unseen,” Brown said.

She added how exciting it was to see one of her friends get up on stage and speak her truth. “We must protect Native women. We must protect Black women at all costs. We must amplify all voices that are important in the movement,” Brown’s friend told the crowd.

WeHo Pride’s Dyke March

Later on Saturday afternoon, WeHo Pride’s Dyke March took place. The motorcycle-led march began with a biker gang — because how else could it start? —  followed by a performance by non-binary alt-pop/hip-hop producer and singer Medusa. The rally trailed down Santa Monica Boulevard and included even more live performances from Gattison, Theia and the KingQueen Band, as well as poetry by Yazmin Monet Watkins, Suri Chan and West Hollywood’s Poet Laurette, Jen Cheng.

For those who love to dance, there was also the Queerchata Pride Social on Saturday afternoon. The event included instructors guiding attendees through a lively Bachata class, a style of dance that originated in the Dominican Republic. After learning a few basic moves in the beginner class, attendees got to enjoy some Bachata and Salsa dancing with fellow queers in the Los Angeles sunshine.

Then the real party kicked off: the second night of the OUTLOUD musical festival included a concert with performances by Yaeji, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Noah Cyrus, Keke Palmer, Pegasus and Jack Faulkner, Channel Tres, Doechii, and, of course, headliner and former TransLash Podcast guest Janelle Monáe. What’s a pride party without Monáe anyway?

Blossom’s WeHo Pride Highlight

Brown didn’t just get to experience this mega concert live in person — she got to bask in all the joyful celebrations from backstage! One of her top five highlights from the weekend was being backstage at Saturday night’s OUTLOUD music festival. “The vibe backstage was so chill, so dope. I saw celebrities like Doechii, Queen Latifah, Gabrielle Union,” Blossom recounted. “I got to witness the moment that Gabrielle Union and Queen Latifah surprised Doechii after her performance. It was such a beautiful, healing moment. I was so inspired,” she added.

Brown’s other top moment from WeHo Pride 2024? Meeting the Queen herself. “She was so kind, so humble, so sweet,” Brown said of Queen Latifah, whom she met backstage. “It’s wonderful to meet A-list celebrities who are down to earth, who are kind. It’s so great to be in that space in WeHo Pride and meeting someone as legendary as Queen Latifah.”

Day 3 of WeHo Pride: Sunday

And finally — the parade! What’s Pride with a Pride Parade, after all? On Sunday afternoon, tens of thousands of people gathered along Santa Monica Boulevard to watch festive floats, colorful marching groups, plenty of dancers, and rainbows and glitter galore, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Celebrating Pride With the Queen Mother

Brown didn’t experience the WeHo Pride Parade from the sidelines, though — she got to be in it. She rode along Santa Monica Boulevard on a float with the organization the Imperial Court of Los Angeles, alongside the Queen Mother of Southern California herself, Mother Karina Samala.

An active member in the LGBTQ+ community for over twenty-five years, Samala is a Filipina trans woman, President of the Board of Directors for the Imperial Court, and current chair of the Los Angeles Transgender Advisory Board.

Additionally, Blossom expressed gratitude for being able to enjoy the parade festivities with some Pride first-timers. She celebrated with a group of Russian and Ukrainian LGBTQ folks who were able to be their fullest selves and attend a Pride event for the very first time.

A Kylie Minogue Finale

The vibrant and joyful Pride weekend came to a bitterweet close on Sunday evening (who wants Pride to ever end?) during the final leg of the OUTLOUD musical festival. Attendees got to dance to music by Ashnikko, Big Freedia, Vincint, a DJ set by Trixie Mattel, and more.

Then the big event everyone had been waiting for finally arrived — a big, queer Kylie Minogue concert. Is there any better way to close out Pride than Padam-ing with a massive dancing crowd? 

The Australian queen of pop performed a handful of her most beloved songs, according to Variety, from “Come Into My World” to “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” to “Love At First Sight,” and of course “Padam Padam.” She even brought Orville Peck on stage to debut a brand new single called “Midnight Ride,” produced by Diplo, who also joined the duo on stage for a fringe-filled performance.

It was a rainbow-infused weekend full of queer love, trans joy, music, dancing, and celebration. 

This isn’t the end of TransLash’s WeHo Pride 2024 coverage! Stay tuned for more exclusive Pride Month photos and videos from Blossom Brown on our socials, including on-the-street interviews from the WeHo Pride weekend with a variety of amazing, inspirational trans and queer folks throughout the Los Angeles area.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know!

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I am only in my mid-20s and have lived at over ten different addresses. I’ve moved for many reasons: schooling, jobs, and love, but underlying each of those moves was actually a desperate search for community.

“Home” for me is a blip on the map just south of Houston, Texas. Growing up, sometimes I felt more at home in the city with the rest of my family and where I could blend into a crowd of people who looked like me, but my mother insisted on the “safety” of small-town life. So, instead, I was big, Black, queer, and poor in a space that revered everything but. Eventually, I left and looked for people who lived out loud.

For college, I ended up in Western Massachusetts. It was only different from my hometown when it came to the foliage and political representatives. There, I ran into primarily white people who didn’t hide their gender expressions or sexualities. I spent my time trying to fit into their friend groups. I was convinced their queerness was the most legitimate because it was the most prominent. The queer and trans people of color I knew were still mostly closeted, often hanging out with me in secret, and it scared me to go back to such a life.

After undergrad, I became engaged to an abuser, a white trans man, in my first openly-queer relationship. We had been together throughout college and were drawn together by our rejecting families. I was convinced that time equaled value, so I clung to the strongest connection I had despite toxicity outweighing the joy. We moved again and again to follow jobs and the promise of opportunity. I noted increasingly frequent displays of white fragility, controlling behavior, and threats to my safety. The facade could no longer be maintained and I finally broke off the engagement. Then, in the middle of a global pandemic, I was alone again.

For the last few years, I’ve taken advantage of worldwide social upheaval (including working remotely and vacated cities) and moved around even more. All the while, I’ve been searching for a place that feels more like home than the last. I’ve been telling myself that somewhere else will be better (and safer) than where I’ve already been, or that I’ll stumble into a niche community that accepts me with little effort. It seems to come easy to other people, so why not me?

Along the way, I began building my world the best way I knew how: through the art of writing. I joined writing courses, weekly groups, and even attempted an MFA in Creative Writing. There, I founded a literary magazine that platformed marginalized writers and received note after note telling me how important it was for it to exist. It got me thinking: my story is not uncommon.

How have other Black queer and trans people found each other? 

*

Simone Person (they/them) is a Black queer femme born and raised in the Midwest. Their queer community has been primarily shaped by the internet.

“At my core, I’m an introvert. Living with PTSD has made in-person activities harder, so I really appreciate the resurgence of digital communication,” Person said.

It took Simone years to acknowledge their queerness and transness. Also inundated with white queerness at the onset of self-discovery, they’ve come to believe that community sets Black queerness apart.

“Black queerness has always felt like it’s built on a belief in the future, particularly a future where Black people exist,” Person said. “In contrast, white queerness traditionally has such a deeply embedded sense of hyper-individuality—real ‘I got mine, you should figure out how to get yours’—a complete lack of structural analysis, and is often extremely reactionary (as seen with the rise of trans-exclusionary and sex work-exclusionary politics in so-called radical queer spaces, because whiteness is the same way). Few white people are willing to give up the social power of whiteness, so they continue to repeat the larger structures of oppression.”

*

Adrienne Doyle (she/they) grew up in close proximity to queerness with a bisexual grandmother. This allowed them the freedom to explore their sexuality in more depth, having had a role model throughout their youth. However, their process of finding queer community didn’t take place until around a decade ago.

After developing a crush on a Black queer roommate, the two became great friends. They introduced Doyle to dance parties, cafes, and other queer institutions run by people of color. Soon, jobs and career goals led Doyle into creating their own queer art-centered space.

“It was a response to the white supremacy that exists within Minneapolis’ cultural institutions—the lack of control Black, Indigenous, and POC folks have over their work, the shuck and jive we are asked to do, and the willingness of white folks to fund and consume depictions of our suffering.”

In 2014, Doyle started a two-year project called Burn Something Zine, featuring written and visual work from femme, nonbinary, and trans folks of color in the Twin Cities. The relationships crafted through this zine project informed the co-founding of Burn Something Collective, a group of seven artists working to create opportunities through exhibition and publication projects.

  “Social media has felt like the clearest way to stay in contact with people or to just see what folks are sharing about their lives, but the tech bros have designed these platforms to be such energy drains,” Doyle said. “I have been leaning on the people in Burn Something Collective as my tethers to some kind of social life. We were all dissatisfied with what the predominantly white Twin Cities art scene has had to offer our communities.”

Even as they’ve all navigated “disorienting” life changes and loss, some strong bonds have been able to form and even “otherworldly shit that feels like spirit working deep.”

“I envision growing deeper into ourselves as people through these relationships, and growing weirder or more comfortable with making fulfilling choices for ourselves that don’t need to make sense to other people,” Doyle said.

*

Kenia Hale (she/her), a recent Yale graduate, has also lived in multiple cities and crafted new worlds in each. She has organized in Ohio, finished up her senior year in Connecticut, and now, since being in New Jersey, has created an arts collective and started an all-BIPOC rock band. The pandemic, as well as the natural shifts that come with life’s cycles, separated those she knew and severed some ties entirely, making the need for community critical.

“During the summer of 2020, I was wondering ‘how can I find people that understand this deep pain that I’m feeling right now?’”

So, though her recent connections have been more in-person, she knew to turn to the internet when the question reared its head. Before her college and organizing years, Hale had found queer community online. Tumblr and its fandom culture helped put a name to her sexuality.

Perhaps inspired by the stress of rapid change, like her recent loss of a Black queer mentor, Hale believes it’s worth making an attempt to rebuild those online communities.

“When we travel from one place to another and hold tight to those connections, we create a mosaic. It’s a cultural exchange and it allows us to honor the paths laid out by those who came before.”

*

For better or for worse, the internet is the crux of the Black queer and trans community. This proves to be worrisome in a time where net neutrality is frequently at risk and broadband access is limited for those of us in rural and poorer communities. I’ve spent much of my life traveling from place to place, seeking the space with the “most welcoming” QTPOC for making deeper connections, when it seems like saving numbers and socials to a device in my pocket can be equally as effective.

For now, we seem to do this until we can achieve the dream of gathering our branching communities into one place to be near each other more often than not.

“Although we were only able to break bread once before the pandemic began in the U.S., we’ve built tender connections with each other throughout the pandemic and the Minneapolis Uprising,” Doyle said. “This summer, we are finishing up our fourth project together, and then I hope to organize a beach house retreat so we can hang in person for a few days, rest, and vision for the future of our collective.”

Person feels similarly about the relationships they’ve crafted but has been unable to nurture in a face-to-face context. They’re also ready to shift with the tide, since our friendships seem so malleable, especially during a time when the community is not and may never be entirely local.

 “My dream is to move to the Colorado mountains and have a Black feminist commune with my homies, but if I have to be more realistic, I just want to continue growing individually and together, even if it means growing apart,” Person said. “I’m trying to accept that change happens, and it’s not always the worst thing.”

 For Hale, this perpetual song-and-dance is simply a part of our culture.“You’re not born necessarily into a queer family, you have to find it,” Hale said. “In that same way, you have to find your own heritage and your own place in that legacy.”

Danielle Monique (she/they) is a Black queer nonbinary woman who writes short stories, screenplays, and essays primarily about the effects of marginalization and finding community. Originally from South Texas, their “cities I’ve called home” count is now at ten, including Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. When not writing, she can be found communing with the ancestors, playing video games that go easy on the heart, or taking sass from her dog.

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