The local LGBTQ community coalesces for a parade with allies.

Tyller Williamson, 29, says a few years ago he couldn’t find a community of queer peers in Monterey. Hilary Lebow, a 29-year-old Seasider who identifies as queer, mirrors that experience, saying there were different groups here and there, but they were fragmented.

“Around the time Trump got elected, a lot of groups were organizing,” Lebow says. “With the resurgence of Pride, and Orlando [being] devastating, people wanted to know where the family is.”

So Lebow, Williamson and others created spaces for that family to gather.

One is lgbtqmonterey.com, a one-stop of resources, groups and connectivity. There is a Meetup social group, and the TGIF monthly cocktail gatherings. The big one, Peninsula Pride Celebration and Parade, launches Saturday in Seaside.

It starts with a parade at 11am. “It’s going to be family-friendly,” Williamson says. “Not too noisy, not too wild.”

A slate of programs at Oldemeyer includes Father Jon Perez of Epiphany Lutheran & Episcopal Church, Congressman Jimmy Panetta, County Supervisor Jane Parker, ACLU Northern California chair Michelle Welsh and local theater actress Gracie Navaille.

Entertainment and culture is on the agenda, including poems by high schoolers, comic book illustrations by Salinas’ Sarah Larsen, yoga, LGBTQ+ history and Salinas-based drag performer and DJ Ayumi Winehouse. “What’s Pride without drag?” Lebow says.

And there will be allies joining in, including the Monterey Peace and Justice Center, Planned Parenthood, Monterey Rape Crisis Center, and, they hope, folks from the community. It’s a celebration, a space for dialogue, an assembly, a reminder, says Lebow, that “members of the family are around.”

PENINSULA PRIDE CELEBRATION AND PARADE is Saturday, June 17. Parade begins at 11am at Monterey Social Services Building; program at noon at Oldemeyer Center, Seaside. Free. lgbtqmonterey.com/pride