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Eliot Perez, Jacob Santiago-Perez and Juan Santiago at SWFL Pride. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY<\/p>\n
I recently wrote that it\u2019s officially festival season in Southwest Florida, and I couldn\u2019t be happier. While I adore dressing up and getting my sparkle on, I also love throwing on a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops to listen to music, stand in food truck lines and sip cold White Claws.\n<\/p>\n
But, even more than that, I love wearing a pink tutu, a sequined rainbow hat and rhinestone rainbow earrings \u2013 which meant that I fit right in at Pride Southwest Florida in downtown Fort Myers last Saturday afternoon. Actually, I was fairly lowkey compared to some of the seriously fabulous outfits I saw. There was plenty of glitter, color, unicorn horns, rainbow knee socks, purple hair, tiaras, fishnet stockings, and SO much more. The drag queens, especially the iconic Alyssa LeMay, totally stole the show, though, with fun, elaborate wigs and gorgeous gowns. Drag performers are strong, though. With a triple degree heat index and insane humidity, I truly thought I was going to meet my maker right there on First Street and enter the pearly gates in an extremely fluffy pink tutu. Not the queens, though \u2013 those girls didn\u2019t even break a sweat wearing corsets, stockings, heels, layers of Maybelline and dancing up a storm on the outdoor stage in front of Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center. The good news about having Pride downtown for the first time is that it was so easy to duck into any of the restaurants and bars for a dose of air-conditioning and an ice-cold cocktail. There were vendors with tons of Pride merch, food trucks, cocktail stops and lots more.\n<\/p>\n
Hugs from moms<\/p>\n
One of my favorite things to see at Pride are all the sweet moms wearing their \u201cFree Mom Hugs\u201d t-shirts. So many folks in the gay community don\u2019t have parents who accept them, so how awesome for them to get warm, loving, unconditional hugs from moms \u2013 there\u2019s truly nothing like a big affectionate squeeze from a mama.\n<\/p>\n
Everyone was spreading the love and an estimated 2,000 people showed up for the festivities. I don\u2019t think I walked past a single soul who didn\u2019t smile at me and say, \u201cHappy Pride\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Big kudos to Visuality, Inc. for organizing the event, the City of Fort Myers Police Department for keeping everything calm and happy, and all the fab folks who showed up and showed out for a truly joyous afternoon. Not only that, the party partied on with a rooftop dance soiree at the art center where guests kicked up their heels and kept the fun and frivolity going.\n<\/p>\n
Friends and frivolity<\/p>\n
The best part of the day was seeing SO many festive friends including Mayor Kevin Anderson, Juan Santiago of ArtFest Fort Myers, Jared Dunn and Amy Slobodzian of Fancy\u2019s, Trine Alfero and Dianne Summers of Florida Rep, Jenny McWhinnie volunteering for the event, PR Maven Marilyn Santiago, Sadie Barbara of WINK-FM with filmmaker Victor Muriel, educators Warren Wright and Matthew Bracey, and the wonderful matriarch of the Southwest Florida gay community, Arlene Goldberg. It was a truly memorable day filled with love!\n<\/p>\n
The summer fun continues<\/p>\n
More festivals to come! The River District Alliance has a banging block party planned for Saturday, the 4th of July complete with fireworks, music, kids activities and lots of red, white, and blue fun!\u2026 Have you embraced Mahjong mania yet? July 16th is your chance, as Holiday House of Fort Myers raises funds with Christmas in July Merry Mahjong where mahjong instructor Liz Abbott will be on hand if you don\u2019t know the difference between a crack and a bam (go to Holiday House of Fort Myers on Facebook for all the sign-up deets)\u2026 And for you body art lovers, make sure you\u2019re at the Florida Gulf Coast Tattoo Expo the weekend of June 26th at Caloosa Sound Convention Center \u2013 hey, I know a guy who got his very first tattoo at 60 \u2013 it\u2019s never too late!\n<\/p>\n
Stephanie Davis is a recovering girl-about-town formerly known as the Downtown Diva. A nearly native Southwest Floridian, when she\u2019s not photographing events for Florida Weekly, she\u2019s perfectly content to stay at home binging Netflix with her husband and three cats, Tennessee, Lilibet, Jack, and Baby.\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eliot Perez, Jacob Santiago-Perez and Juan Santiago at SWFL Pride. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY I recently wrote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-312922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}