SALT LAKE CITY — Mayor Erin Mendenhall and members of the Salt Lake City Council helped raise the LGBTQ Pride flag at city hall on Thursday, kicking off the annual Utah Pride Festival.
"It's so big and people see it, they'll want to come down here and feel the love," Tanya Hawkins, the co-CEO of the Utah Pride Center, said as she looked up at the flag.
The festival is expected to draw roughly 150,000 people downtown to celebrate and support Utah's LGBTQ community, organizers said. Hawkins said it would be a welcoming and safe environment for people, with expanded grounds on Washington Square and Library Square.
"Get ready to have some fun," she said. "It’s going to be great."
In her remarks to the crowd, Mayor Mendenhall criticized "bad policy and bad legislation" targeting the LGBTQ community across the nation and in Utah recently. In an interview with FOX 13 News, the mayor said she was referring to bills targeting LGBTQ youth.
"These are legislative policies that we’re talking about," she said. "That we’re fighting for year-round and we end up on those battlefields at the state legislature. Salt Lake City, cities in the state can only go so far in protecting our residents. But we can keep showing up as allies and we’re going to keep doing that."
Mayor Mendenhall was being honored by the Utah Pride Center this year for her work as an ally of the LGBTQ community.
"It means a lot to me because I feel like there’s not enough I can do to be an ally," she said. "I've tried to show up and bring the city to show up in more ways than we have before."
As he has done every year since he took office, Governor Spencer Cox issued a proclamation for Pride month. He is one of the few Republican governors in the nation to regularly do so. The governor declared that "Utah values the uniqueness of all individuals within our communities and recognizes that everyone has a place in our state," and expressed an "aspiration in the state of Utah to foster a culture of hope, understanding, love, dignity and respect."
The governor has been criticized by some in the LGBTQ community for signing a bill the legislature passed earlier this year, imposing a moratorium on health care for transgender youth. He was praised a year ago by LGBTQ rights activists for vetoing a bill banning transgender children from playing school sports matching their gender identity (the legislature overrode him).
On Thursday, Gov. Cox's office declined to comment beyond the Pride month proclamation itself. On Twitter later in the day, the Utah Pride Center criticized the proclamation for neglecting to mention "LGBTQ" as a "coward act of erasure."
Jay Tactay, who oversees youth and family programs for the Utah Pride Center, called for more education about transgender issues.
"I feel like education is definitely a big step when it comes to understanding our community," he told FOX 13 News. "If you don't understand it? Get educated. Learn more about it."
Hawkins extended an invitation for Gov. Cox to attend the festival to meet with members of the LGBTQ community.
"I invite him to come down to the festival. That would be great. Come tonight. Meet us, join us," she said.
