The Northern Nevada Pride is an annual pride parade and associated festival in Reno, Nevada produced by Our Center.[2][3] The festival has grown into one of northern Nevada's largest annual LGBTQ+ gatherings, combining visibility, celebration, and advocacy.[4][5] The festival is held each September, as of 2023, at MidTown Reno.[6]
Northern Nevada Pride traces its origins to smaller local Pride and parade events in the Reno area during the late 1980s and 1990s, gradually growing into a significant annual celebration of LGBTQIA+ culture, community, and advocacy in northern Nevada. The first Northern Nevada Pride was held on July 26, 2014 as part of Artown.[7][8][9] Originally held in places like Wingfield Park and Downtown Reno, the event now features a parade and festival in MidTown Reno, bringing together thousands of community members, performers, vendors, and supporters.[10] The Pride event benefits northern Nevada's only LGBTQ+ community center, Our Center, after federal funding loss.[11][12][13]
LGBTQ+ History in Northern Nevada
Long before Pride parades or modern LGBTQ+ activism, Northern Nevada's queer roots stretched back into Indigenous traditions. The Paiute and Shoshone tribes honored two-spirit identities, individuals embodying both masculine and feminine qualities, who often served as healers, spiritual leaders, or mediators. As colonialism and state laws took hold, much of this early identity expression was erased or pushed underground.[14]
By the early 1900s and through the Prohibition and gambler boom years, Reno's queer life was centered around hidden venues and speakeasies. One of the most infamous spaces was “Belle’s Cowshed,” opened in the 1930s by Belle Livingstone, where drag performances and female impersonators were a draw during the era of the Pansy Craze.[14][15] These early social pockets set the foundation for public queer visibility, even though legal and social pressures made such visibility risky.[16][17]
In the 1960s and 70s, queer organizing in Reno began to take more public forms. The University of Nevada, Reno held “Sex Week” with lesbian speakers and openly queer issues, and local lesbian publications like The Ladder opened Reno as a printing base for broader lesbian discourse.[18] At the same time, LGBTQ+ bars, clubs, and the Silver Dollar Court emerged, creating safe community spaces. The Reno Gay Rodeo (1976–84)[19] became a major festival blending rural tradition with queer joy—and unexpectedly influential for LGBTQ+ culture both regionally and nationally.[20] In 1985, Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts—filmed in Reno—broke new ground in queer cinema as one of the first lesbian love stories to end on a hopeful note, challenging the tragic conventions that had long dominated LGBTQ+ representation on screen.[21]
21st Century
During more recent decades, Northern Nevada saw legal and social shifts. In 2011, sexual orientation and gender identity became protected classes under state law.[22][23][24] Senate Bill 331 revised the definition of unlawful discrimination in places of public accommodation to include discrimination based on "sex" or "gender identity or expression",[25] and Senate Bill 368 prohibited housing discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation" or "gender identity or expression".[26]
The first LGBTQ community center in Washoe County, A Rainbow Place, was established on February 8, 2000.[27][28] It closed in 2007 due to insufficient funds.[29][30] Fundraising for a new community center began in 2009 by the 501(c)(3) organization Build Our Center, Inc., and intensified in 2014 with the inaugural Northern Nevada Pride parade.[30] Our Center opened on April 29, 2016, providing a dedicated physical space and advocacy hub for the northern Nevada LGBTQ community.[31][32] Its first formal event, Rainbows at the Ranch, was held in 2021.[30][33]
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