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Sioux Falls Hosts First-Ever LGBTQ Parade

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Wednesday, June 12, 2019   

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - The annual Sioux Falls Pride Festival this weekend will include a first-ever downtown parade as part of the activities.

Adam Jorgensen, communications associate for the ACLU of South Dakota, said he grew up in Dell Rapids and came out as gay when he was 7 years old. Jorgensen said it's important for people in the LGBTQ community to share their stories. He said he believes there are many gay South Dakotans, both young and old, who still are afraid to be who they are.

"We've gotten notes and messages from people, and kids especially, just saying that hearing people's stories and seeing people on the news, or out on the street or at a pride festival, being themselves kind-of empowers them to do the same," he said.

In the past four years, the pride festival has grown from 600 to more thn 10,000 attendees. The parade, which will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday along Phillips Avenue, will include 33 floats and people walking. Additional events will be held Friday and Saturday at Terrace Park.

One of the parade-route coordinators is Cody Ingle, who moved to South Dakota from Indiana to work at a Sioux Falls church. According to Ingle, when church officials became aware he was gay, he was let go. He nonetheless made Sioux Falls his home and said he'd like to see local religious and faith groups become more welcoming to the LGBTQ community.

"There's a very big group of LGBTQ-plus people that desire to be a part of, maybe not a Christian church, but a faith in general," he said, "and there's kind of this stigma that, well, if you're in this community, you can't be a part of the faith community as well."

Four anti-transgender bills were introduced this year in the South Dakota Legislature, including one that would have placed restrictions on transgender athletes. The bill died after the ACLU published a petition in the South Dakota Argus Leader signed by more than 200 athletes, coaches and administrators in favor of transgender athletes being allowed to compete.


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