Wesleyan Community Marches at PrideFEST
For the eighth straight year, Wesleyan University community members joined the Middletown community in celebrating LGBTQIA2S+ communities at Middletown PrideFEST, the largest Pride event in Connecticut, on June 7.
Wesleyan is a co-founding partner of Middletown Pride alongside Russell Library and Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce. Middlesex Health is also a partner of the festivities. The University’s participation was led by Pride@Wes (PAW), an LGBTQIA2S+ affinity group on campus.
“I think it's really great to have our name associated with it,” Vice President for Student Affairs Mike Whaley said. “It definitely sends a signal to our community, but then also beyond our community about the kind of place that Wesleyan is with respect to embracing the diversity of our community.”
Several Wesleyan faculty and staff members marched in the parade, hoisting two custom banners as they walked down Main Street. One of the marchers, Dean for Academic Advancement Laura Patey said she felt a strong sense of community throughout the parade. Patey was one of the original planners of Wesleyan’s participation in PrideFEST in 2018 and has attended the parade each year since, she said.
“Pride is the celebration that unites the diversity of LGBTQIA2S+ people across the globe,” Patey said. “It is an opportunity for the community to come together especially in light of the significant divides that we see in the country.”
Marchers also handed out buttons made by The Resource Center during the parade. Demetrius Colvin, director of The Resource Center, said marching in the parade is a way to demonstrate the world he would like to see everywhere, one of inclusivity where underrepresented groups are supported to be themselves.
“We're not just doing it during Pride month. We're doing it in our families and our community spaces and different ways all throughout the year,” Colvin said. “But the way in which we can coalesce at a particular time—and not just in terms of one city, with the fact that so many cities across the world, but particularly in America are all doing it and recognizing it—and it's really making us feel like we are changing things and it's not just about being visible, but creating the new normal.”
Colvin spoke at a rally after the parade highlighting the power of Queer community and its ability to be hopeful, interconnected, mighty, and a place of collective solidarity against oppression. He called Pride a celebration, but also a commitment for attendees to act with courage, love, and clarity in the face of injustice. Alongside the parade and rally, there was also a showcase concert and tea dance on the South Green.
“Queer community teaches us to imagine otherwise. To believe in what we haven’t yet seen. To love boldly in a world that too often tries to make us shrink,” Colvin said. “Our hope is not naïve—it is strategic, radical, and deeply needed. We choose to believe in the possibility of transformation, not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.”
At a sidewalk commemoration on June 6, Dean of the Social Sciences Mary-Jane Rubenstein, described the many ways the Wesleyan community interacts with the city and how the tone of Pride has changed over the years depending on the current moment.
“We have seen a better world; we have built a better world; we are in a better world, and we will not sit down as anybody takes it from us,” Rubenstein said. “We will act locally; we will think strategically; we will tie ties; we will build bridges; and we will march in the rain to say we will not be robbed of this world we have made.”
