What started as a Hobby Lobby protest quickly became a Pride celebration on Sunday, May 31. Brought together by a common cause in opposition to the craft store, Victor Valley residents showed up to Amargosa and Bear Valley Roads clad in rainbow apparel with LGBTQ+ flags strewn across their backs.
Some were transgender, some husbands had husbands, some were simply there in support of fellow community members. A father held a napping child too young to walk in his arms, while he grasped a poster with his knuckles that read “I nap but I stay woke.” A High Desert resident with a sign that read “Love is love” also wore a shirt with encouraging words: Free mom hugs.
“There aren’t too many places in the High Desert where people like me can feel safe,” Hesperia resident Riley Molina said. They wore baby-pink Gogo boots and carried a transgender flagpole. “We are here fighting for visibility, for inclusion. We have to carve our own way here; no one else is going to.”
Throughout the peaceful demonstration, religious protesters blasted scripture verses over a megaphone just across the intersection, set up in an anti-protest formation. They claimed themes of repentance and contrition, and cited Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 22:5 and other Bible verses notorious for opposing same-sex relations.
According to Mario J. Novoa, co-organizer of the event, there are political protests on the same corner every Sunday, and not once have religious protesters shown up during those demonstrations. He said this time felt intentional.
Before the event, HD Pride Center organizers condemned the community for forcing queer residents to hide and advertised that this would be a day of solidarity and visibility. The demonstration, in effect, proved one thing above all others: that there are far more transgender and LGBTQ+ individuals living among neighbors in the High Desert than previously realized. Thanks to the Pride event, they were able to come out of hiding, with solace in knowing that at least for one day, they could be who they are without the fear of bullying.
‘The High Desert needs to change’
Event organizer Will Smith said the main purpose of the demonstration was much bigger than Hobby Lobby. It was an advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and equality.
Those rights were exemplified by couple Selene Degrandchamps and Randi Stoner, two transgender women. Degrandchamps says fighting for equal rights isn’t just a transgender woman’s fight; it’s every woman’s fight. “Women have been told since the beginning that they do not fit the criteria, that they need to be made smaller, and kept controlled. I want all women to see this trap and understand that they alone cannot fight it. But we can be heard in numbers.”
Attendance was open to all individuals who wished to show up for LGBTQ+ protections, regardless of political affiliation or group status.
One such individual was High Desert resident and former Republican Tom Kelm. Kelm goes to tens of protests in the High Desert and beyond. He is a staple at the Sunday political protests on the same corner and told the Daily Press that because he has been on both sides of the political coin, his political support is now calculated and deliberate.
Previously, he would have never been a part of something like a Pride demonstration. However, he said he has come a long way with what he believes, and that the current administration helped steer him in the other direction.
It was David Ricards’ first time at any protest. A member of St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church in Hesperia, Ricards said High Desert residents deserve to love whoever they want.
“This isn’t the 1950s anymore. The High Desert needs to change.”
McKenna Mobley is a reporter for the Daily Press. She can be reached at mmobley@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: ‘The High Desert needs to change’: LGBTQ+ demonstration for Pride month
Reporting by McKenna Mobley, Victorville Daily Press / Victorville Daily Press
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