Waltham To Celebrate First Ever LGBTQ+ Pride Festival On The Common

WALTHAM, MA — Waltham will celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride this year with a festival on the Waltham Common on Saturday, June 4 from 11a.m. to 4 p.m.

This is only the second year Waltham has had its own Pride celebration and the first on the common. The festival, which is open to all ages and anyone who supports the LGBTQ+ community, will feature musicians, guest speakers, tables representing a wide range of local organizations, and activities for kids.

Planned around the themes of visibility, solidarity, and education, the festival will feature performances by Evan Greer, an up-and-coming Boston-based musician and activist, drag performers Missy Steak and Toast, singer Katie Gullotti, Newton-based kids’ acrobatics program Circus Complex, Waltham-based musician Izzy Tappan-Defrees and DJ Jen Zubera, and all-ages Zumba lead by Ann Callahan.

Speakers will include Brenda Peña, principal of Waltham High School, Julián Cancino, director of the Gender and Sexuality Center at Brandeis, former Waltham City Councilor Kristine Mackin, and longtime Waltham activist Jennifer Rose.

According to organizers, Waltham has been an important place for LGBTQ+ people in New England since at least the early 1980s as the home of one of the oldest trans rights organizations in the US, Trans Community of New England, which was founded in 1978.

In the 1990s, Waltham was also home to Vernon’s, a store on Moody Street that specialized in clothing for trans women and male cross-dressers. In the 1980s to 1990s, the group “Way Out Waltham” organized gatherings for the local LGBTQ+ community, including a local party after Boston Pride.

The idea of a Waltham Pride celebration started in a “Queer Waltham” Facebook group that began last year, where members discussed getting together in person when COVID restrictions were lifted. When Boston Pride was planned as an online-only event and was facing a widespread boycott due to allegations that it failed to include and support all segments of the LGBTQ_ community, Waltham residents organized the city’s first Pride, which took place in a private backyard.

Since then, the Waltham LGBTQ+ community has overcome Waltham High School's potential ban on two LGBTQ-themed books and responded to apparent attempts to censor the Little Queer Library.

“This year we knew Pride needed to be much more visible and include as much of our community as possible,” Josh Kastorf, one of the organizers, said in a statement.

This organizing committee is made up of last year’s planners plus some new additions, including Katie Cohen and Krysta Petrie, the couple behind the Little Queer Library.

“Boston Pride's dissolution has granted our community a great opportunity - a long-overdue reason to organize Pride celebrations at a local level,” Petrie said in a statement. “Additionally, the ever-growing anti-LGBT rhetoric has undoubtedly contributed to the repeated thefts from and vandalism to our Little Queer Library. Given these circumstances, we felt it imperative to help organize a grassroots, non-corporate event for the local Queer community. We hope Waltham Pride will bring joy, solace, and hope for the future.”

This year’s Waltham Pride Festival was made possible by supporters of a successful GoFundMe campaign. For more information, click here.