AUSTIN, Texas — Balloons are now filling the living room of Glen Langford, who is the President of the Austin Gay Men’s Chorus.
“We are building our float for the 2022 pride parade that will be downtown in Austin,” said Langford.
Usually, they are performing but, on Saturday, about half of the group will be marching in the Austin Pride parade, balloons and all, in celebration – but also for a greater purpose.
“We need people to know that we're people just like them,” said Langford. “It feels weird to be going back and saying that again after all the progress that was made, but it feels like we made those steps forward and now we're being knocked back several steps. People want to knock us back even more steps.”
Langford is referring to recent political happenings, like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas bringing up the idea of removing federal gay marriage rights, something that was an issue before Langford and his husband could legally be married.
“We’ve been together for 25 years,” Langford said. “We've only been married for four. And it was a very big moment when we finally did get married.”
He said Central Texas is special. The Austin Gay Men’s Chorus recently sang at the first ever Round Rock Pride Festival, and he said the support of the Austin community is encouraging.
“I don't know that I could return to live back home where I grew up in Lubbock,” he said. “That place is just not inviting. Austin's the only place I can live in Texas."
Other groups, like the Kind Clinic, will also be walking in the pride parade. Steven Tamayo works for the Kind Clinic as the director of community health and he is also one of the parade grand marshals.
"It's kind of ceremonial. I get to be on the parade float and lead the parade and that's it. But I got a cool sash,” he laughed.
Although he is excited about the sash, he is more excited for people from all over to come here to Austin, where they can feel included and seen.
“Because maybe they're from a small town where hanging a Pride flag on their front porch might be a dangerous move,” Tamayo said. “And so being able to be their most authentic self and celebrate and be celebrated is really vital.”
While the preparations by the Kind Clinic, or the hundreds of balloons filling Glen Langford’s living room, may be impressive, what impresses Langford the most is the more than 400,000 people expected to come out to support each other on Saturday.
“That's just an amazing amount of people to me to be involved in that and be excited about LGBTQ issues going on right now,” said Langford.
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