Save the Date!

Haywood County Pride is excited to announce that we have been formally established as a nonprofit organization and are hosting Haywood County’s first ever official Queer Culture Celebration on Saturday, October 5th, 2024, from 10am to 5pm at the HART Theater!

What to expect at the HayCo Pride Queer Culture Celebration on October 5th:

• An interactive experience co-creating a community quilt mural, representing the intersection of cultural identities for Appalachian LGBTQIA2S+ folks with Sensory-Friendly hours for inclusion before noon
• A community resource fair and free market, focused on providing gender and sexuality affirming services and material goods with a cost barrier
• An immersive History Archive experience to launch our Haywood County LGBTQIA2S+ Archive
• An art show organized by and featuring youth artists
• An ancestral memorial to honor and venerate our LGBTQIA2S+ ancestors for Queer History Month
• And more!

We are actively seeking organizations and groups to serve as community partners in bringing this event to life! All are welcome – whether you are interested in co-sponsoring the event, participating in the Haywood County Pride coalition, or having a table at the resource fair.

Organizations that are interested in getting involved can reach out to us at info@haycopride.com

Individuals that are interested in getting involved can sign up at bit.ly/haycopride

Make sure to keep an eye on the official website (HAYCOPRIDE.COM) for more updates and announcements as we get closer to October!

About Us

Haywood County Pride is a coalition of LGBTQIA+ individuals, allies, and supportive organizations working towards an inclusive and safe community for the people of Haywood County, NC.

Why now? Why a nonprofit?

We know that Pride is so much more than a flashy parade or a one-time event. Rather, the history is rooted in revolutionary resistance to suppression experienced by the LGBTQIA+ community. The Pride events that we have come to know were born out of a march to Central Park in NYC that was initially hosted to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots – it was referred to as “Christopher Street Liberation Day,” and it intentionally adopted the theme of “Gay Pride” as a counternarrative that offered liberation in place of shame.

53 years have passed since that first march to Central Park, and measurable progress that has been made regarding the constitutional right to same-sex marriage and legal protection against hate-based violence. At the same time, a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced across the nation in 2023 targeting gender-affirming services, media representation, public education curriculum, and civil rights.

With this context in mind, Haywood County Pride was conceived to nurture inclusion, safety, and liberation among our local LGBTQIA2S+ community. The impact we plan to make in 2024 is ambitious, but is only the beginning.

Our purpose for 2024 and beyond is to:

• Fill in gaps of missing narrative representation and community support for LGBTQIA+ folks in Haywood County by offering mutual aid, cultural events, and shared spaces that nurture queer joy and encourage reciprocity through service to our community, while challenging homophobic and transphobic rhetoric and false narratives.
• Celebrate and uplift the diverse identities of LGBTQIA+ community members across Haywood County through the collection, amplification, and preservation of our personal stories and experiences.
• Foster a sense of awareness, safety, and inclusion for community members that have been historically oppressed and marginalized — especially those at the intersection of marginalized experiences among the LGBTQIA+ spectrum: elders and youths; Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color; poor and working class folks; and/or people with disabilities.

Our goals for 2024 are to:

• Raise $1,969 to kickstart a mutual aid fund that will be used to support LGBTQIA+ community members experiencing hardship and to purchase YA books with LGBTQIA+ representation to go into Little Libraries all around the county
• Create a multimedia archive of Haywood County LGBTQIA+ history and experiences by collecting and preserving personal narratives and materials (in partnership with Invisible Histories)