Pride Month is near and the organizers of Dallas Pride have announced an inaugural role for their annual Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade: an honorary grand marshal.
The honor has been bestowed upon actor Billy Porter, who, in a career stretching nearly three decades, has won an Emmy, a Grammy and two Tonys.
This year’s Dallas Pride, scheduled for June 1-2 in Fair Park, is themed “Unity in Community” and includes a music festival and dance performances in addition to the parade.
Porter has portrayed characters that embody different aspects of the queer and Black experience to critical acclaim. His roles have included the drag queen Lola in the 2013 original Broadway adaptation of Kinky Boots and an elder called Pray Tell in the FX series Pose, which is about New York City’s underground ballroom culture in the ’80s.
The actor’s sartorial choices on Hollywood’s award circuit, notably a draping black-and-white tuxedo gown — a marriage of two distinct traditional formal outfits — have been characterized as defying gender norms and stereotypes.
Off the screen and stage, Porter has been open about his personal struggles. In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he shared he had been living with HIV for 14 years.
“I have lived with that shame in silence … HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God’s punishment,” he said.
“It’s time to grow up and move on because shame is destructive — and if not dealt with, it can destroy everything in its path,” he said.
Sherrell Cross, the executive director of Dallas Pride, said in a statement that the organization is thrilled to welcome Porter. “He symbolized the spirit of unity, pride and resilience within the LGBTQ+ community, and will undoubtedly electrify audiences with his spirit and sparkle.”
Dallas Pride began as a gathering of roughly 300 men and women in 1972, three years after the historic Stonewall uprising, a confrontation between LGBTQ activists and police in New York City.
The parade’s first grand marshals, in 1985, were feminist author Rita Mae Brown and Harold P. Daire, a co-founder of an AIDS counseling center in Oak Lawn.
Details
The music festival and dance performances will take place June 1. The annual Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade will be on June 2. For more information, visit dallaspride.org.
