“The Spice Girls Saved My Life” Julio Salgado, 2025.
The days leading up to my favorite pride celebration in Long Beach–Oakland pride is a close second– the lack of a pop star headliner led to angry comments on the Long Beach Pride instagram page from my fellow gays. We’d been spoiled. You see, right after the pandemic, many pride events got a music festival rebranding with headlining artists like Mariah Carey, Megan Thee Stallion, and Kylie Minogue partaking in our pride events. Even the Latino stage at Long Beach Pride was graced with the likes of Paulina Rubio and Natalia Jiménez. But when Long Beach pride announced this year’s event, the lack of headliners made many queers feel disappointed. At first, I was really mad at my fellow queers. How can I possibly remind them in a couple of words in the comment section that pride started as a riot without a pop diva? Then, the anger turned into grace.
You see, for many of us queers, pop stars were a bridge into a world of love and glamour that we ached to live as teenage queerdos. These artists gave us a chance to escape our little closets through beautiful pop, rock, r&b, and punk sounds. We memorized lyrics and obsessed over album covers. For a lot of us, these were the influencers who led us to a career in the creative field. The majority were women. There was something about women in the arts that made us feel seen. So when pride events across the country could no longer afford a pop star headliner in their prides, the disappointment was real. But that’s pride in a capitalist world my babies–I’m talking to you rainbow-less corporations. These artists truly don’t owe us anything. It’s nice when they fight along with us against the constant transphobia and homophobia. But they truly don’t owe us shit. They did their part by gifting us their art. The art did what art is supposed to do and got us through some tough moments in our queer childhood and adolescence. And so these series is a homage to those artists that truly saved our lives.
With everything that is going on, I don’t know what the future of pride events is going to look like. As long as I am able to, I will continue to support these pride events all year long. I don’t think we should need an incentive to celebrate a history that is in danger of being erased.
“A Room Of My Own” Julio Salgado, 2022.
