Editor's Note: This Voices of Youth story is sponsored by the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health. Caroline Bissonette was the Writing Mentor.

HASTINGS, MI — To most people across the United States, June is just like any other summer month. But for queer people, June is Pride Month — the single federally recognized month of the year where queer folks from around the country celebrate what makes them unique. When a friend invited me to help organize a Pride event in my small town of  Hastings, Mich., I couldn’t say no. I needed to do this for my younger self who thought being queer meant I was made wrong, and for all those like me feeling lost and alone in their own rural communities.

An important piece of this celebration is holding remembrance for the heroes of LGBTQIA+ history, such as Marsha P. Johnson, a trans woman who threw the first brick during the Stonewall Riot of 1969 in retaliation for frequent police harassment and brutality against the queer community. Much of this history, which is crucial to understanding who we are and where we’ve come from, is lost on young LGBTQ+ people in rural areas. Today, huge Pride parades and events attended by thousands are regular happenings in big cities like New York or Detroit, where queer folks are more likely to be open about who they are. 

It begs the question: What about the thousands of small towns across America, where you have a better chance of seeing the Loch Ness monster than a pride flag? What about the unseen, the unrepresented, the missing piece of the colorful queer puzzle living in rural America?
Here in Hastings, change is happening. As the second annual Hastings Pride Festival approaches, it felt right to look back on the long fight to put on the very first, along with the changemakers I met along the way.

Hastings: population 7,512, known for things like rolling fields of corn and the annual Barry County Fair.  Growing up here wasn’t easy for someone like Eric Soya, 46, who had little queer representation in his community as a young gay man.

“There was only one person in high school who was out, and he was not treated well by most,” said Soya, who came out to his family during his senior year of high school. He was one of the lucky ones. 

“I had a loving and supportive family and group of friends. I saw the intolerance, but was shielded from it. As I came out to my family and friends, I was met with love and support, and in many cases, it was almost a non-issue,” he says.

Many queer people in rural America are too afraid to share anything that makes them different, let alone reveal something as taboo as their sexuality. For many queer youth in Hastings, without the support system Soya had, it could mean being beaten, kicked out, or put into conversion therapy. In fact, only 34% of rural LGBTQIA+ youth reported a supportive environment at home, according to a Trevor Project study this year.

What if just one event held once a year could help support and provide visibility to these youth and their allies? That’s where Hastings Pride Festival was born, spearheaded by 30-year-old Sydney Smith, in 2023. Smith, a self-described lesbian, put together a team of fellow LGBTQIA+ folks who live or grew up in the area. A mix of ages, orientations, and backgrounds, they all had experienced firsthand the problem of a clear lack of representation and visibility in their small-town community. Despite the committee’s differences, there was one thing they shared: they were ready for the uphill battle of having a pride event in a historically conservative and traditional small town. 

Every Pride event needs a location. They needed a stage, areas for vendors, and booths peddling critical resources or selling their pride-themed wares. Reserving a local amphitheater, Thornapple Plaza, needed a vote from the Hastings City Council. Surprisingly, this went without a hitch. Even the most conservative members voted unanimously to allow them to proceed with the event. Smith recollected the importance of the first event last year, saying, “When I think about what pride means to me, and what it would have been like having an event like this around when I was younger, the first thing that comes to mind is feeling safer. I feel much safer to know we can and have had a safe Pride event in Hastings with great attendance and no violence.”

Many people who volunteered their time to put together this event also fronted their own money to get the ball rolling. Their passion outweighed any doubt that they had. This was not just for them, but all LGBTQ+ people in Hastings and beyond, especially the ones who are no longer with us, overwhelmed by a world that didn’t accept them.

The committee created flyers, recruited entertainment, including drag entertainers, and began fundraising. J Maizlish Mole, another committee member, aimed to lift the event’s fundraising off the ground. Mole, 51, describes himself as pansexual. A crucial member of the committee, he had experience fundraising for an LGBTQ+ organization in Hastings, too. 

Dale Krueger IV“My involvement with the Pride project in Hastings began more than a year before our first festival, when my partner and I fundraised to publish a full-page response to a nasty, homophobic sermon that had been published in the local paper," Mole says. "We managed to raise an extraordinary amount of money from dozens and dozens of people in just a couple of days. We were blown away by the speed and the level of support. 

"Up to that point, I don’t think there had been any LGBTQ+ organizations in town, apart from the [gender and sexuality alliance] at the high school. So, to see this enormous list of people who suddenly came together to ferociously stand up for the LGBTQ+ community was amazing. Off the back of that effort we started a little community-building organization called Queer And Friends of Hastings (QuAFoH), and threw a pop-up Pride event. 

"The following March, we got wind that someone else in town was wanting to put a Pride festival together, and we all joined forces. It naturally fell to me to spearhead the fundraising, because QuAFoH had a huge head start in that department.” 

These efforts reaching out into the community wouldn’t come without cost.
The backlash began as soon as advertising for the event started. A flood of cruel, critical comments started when committee members shared flyers in local Facebook groups, such as “Hastings Informed,” where it was commonplace for events to share their ads.

Comments like “DISGUSTING” and “What has Hastings come to???” littered the response section. 

“How can pride be family-friendly with a drag show? YUCK! You just want to turn our kids gay!” one commenter wrote. “Gonna be an empty event,” said another.

But these commenters weren't alone. An onslaught of vitriol infiltrated volunteers’ message requests. Some threatened to do “God’s work” and cause me or other organizers harm. Hastings Pride Committee expected some level of pushback, but those taking it to a level of hate-filled extremity pushed the bounds of safety.

Historic tensions and skepticism between the LGBTQIA+ community and policing bled into 2024. The committee was concerned about whom to turn to with these threats or safety concerns. The county sheriff’s department has been criticized in years past for having anti-LGBTQIA+ materials laid out in the lobby, fueling more distrust.

Fortunately, the Hastings City Police worked closely with event organizers to create safety plans and monitored individuals who were taking their comments and messages way too far. The police department offered to meet with event organizers to go over any concerns they had and the best way to keep Pride attendees safe.

After the initial backlash began, dozens of community members attended the next city council meeting. Many came to share their concerns over the Pride event. Some shared their criticism of the council members' decision to allow the event. Many allies and LGBTQIA+ locals also came to counteract the attack on the event. Parents, queer folks, and even clergy members came to speak on the importance of the event. 

City council chose to hold fast to the commitment they made, which meant Hastings Pride 2024 was on. 

Despite all the pushback and efforts to stop the event from happening, the organizers found a glimmer of hope in some unexpected support. On the public forums where people had once spewed hate so openly, seedlings of support grew. Dozens of allies and local queer folks rallied together and turned the consensus on its head. Message requests in volunteers' inboxes also changed in tone from death threats and accusations of grooming to statements of kindness and encouragement.

“You’re doing a good job! Keep going. I admire the work you all are doing,” one woman said.

It was on the back of this encouragement that the Hastings Pride Committee hosted its very first event in June 2024, which went off without a hitch.

Over 700 people attended the flagship event, which had dozens of informational and vendor booths, plus a family-friendly drag show. 

Surprisingly, despite intense backlash, only three protesters showed up to the event to express their distaste. 

One man, who had been filmed throwing “holy water” on pride-goers in a nearby town, held a sign that read “LGBTQ is an abomination.” Its black and white design stood out, perhaps metaphorically, from the colorful celebration that was Hastings Pride 2024. 

With last year’s event being a home-run success, Hastings Pride 2025 was scheduled for June 28th. 

That day was a hot 80 degrees, but still a reprieve from the recent mid-90s of a Michigan heat wave. 

As organizers arrived early to begin setup and help organize vendor tables, volunteers gathered nearby to discuss plans for safety. The committee had again met with Hastings City Police to go over the top priority at every Hastings Pride event: safety. 

Volunteers stationed themselves at each entrance to keep an eye out for any trouble or protesters. They equipped themselves with methods for de-escalation and bottles of water.

Mole shares some of what surprised him about setting up the second annual event.

“I was unsurprised by the amount of vitriol we’ve seen online, but pleasantly surprised by how few of the local haters actually showed up to protest — basically none," he says. "The vitriol is extreme, and there is a lot of ill feeling among a very vocal part of our community. But the first year we got three religious protesters, who we’d already seen at other Pride events in the region, a few big black truck peel-outs, some outright lies spread online about what had happened at the event, and … that was it,” he says. “This year our beloved local dive bar, where a lot of queer people have historically not felt all that comfortable, is under new ownership, and they’ve signed on to sponsor us and host their own after-party. This has been another great surprise.” 

The local dive bar, formerly known as Old Towne Tavern, asked to host a pride afterparty with their donation. The newly branded Full Moon Saloon extended an olive branch to the local LGBTQIA+ community. Local business support is crucial to maintaining safe places for local queer folks to go. 

People of all walks of life poured into the event, donning their most festive pride gear. Progressive pride flags, colorful outfits meticulously styled in celebration, and huge smiles were everywhere to be seen. 

Folks with shirts labeled "Free Mom Hugs" and "Free Dad Hugs" were all over, setting a precedent for the young people around that even if their own families don’t support them, their chosen family here in the Hastings queer and allied community will. 

Organizers estimate attendance at around 600 people, and the Hastings Pride Committee was able to donate roughly $800 to the Hastings High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance. 

At one point during the festival a wall of people of all ages, allies and queer people alike, holding colorful signs, umbrellas and rainbow flags banded together to block a protester holding a sign condemning the event’s supporters "to hell." They sent a message to the youth attending the event that no matter what kind of hate comes your way, you always have a community in Hastings that will be there to stand between them and you. This message resonated most with Piper Gruesbeck, a 16-year-old bisexual Hastings resident. 

“Living in Hastings as an openly queer person has made me a target of bullying in the past," Gruesbeck says. "The kind of bullying that doesn’t make life feel worth living anymore. Fortunately there are other queer people in this community that have made me feel seen. There are not many of us at all, but we take care of each other and love each other greatly. Seeing all the love from our community made it clear that there is hope for the younger generation of queer people.”


Dale Krueger IV is an aspiring writer, LGBTQIA+ rights advocate, and lifelong Hastings resident who wrote this piece as part of the Voices of Youth journalism training program. He is also a member of the queer community and serves on the Hastings Pride Committee as the vendor organizer and community liaison, helping to put on the event for the last two years. He is proud of Hastings Pride being the subject of his first-ever journalism piece.