Singer Belinda Carlisle to Headline Sacramento Pride
Singer Belinda Carlisle, formerly lead singer for renowned all-girl punk band The Go-Go's, will be the headline act at Sacramento Pride Festival, Saturday, June 6. More than 15,000 visitors from Sacramento and Northern California are expected to attend the festival, which will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Sacramento's Capitol Mall.
The event will feature displays by hundreds of local businesses and non-profit organizations, live entertainment on two stages, Dance Pavilion, Pet Pavilion sponsored by Lasher Subaru Elk Grove, where pets will be available for adoption; a Kids Zone; an Art Zone featuring work of local artists, sponsored by Crocker Art Museum; food trucks and refreshing beverages. Tickets are $10, children five and under are free; tickets may be purchased online in May, or at the gates.
The day-long celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pride also will include the Sacramento Pride Parade, sponsored in part by The Niello Company, which will begin at 11 a.m. at 3rd and N streets and end at 10th and N streets. The parade, which is free to spectators, will feature floats, cheerleaders, bands and performers, as well as contingents from churches, veterans and law enforcement groups and non-profit organizations.
Carlisle will headline a full schedule of live entertainment on the festival Main Stage. After leaving the Go-Go's in 1984, Carlisle's first album, 1986's "Belinda," included the single "Mad About You," which went gold, followed in 1987 by "Heaven on Earth," which included the number one title track, the number two single "I Get Weak," and the Top Ten ballad "Circle in the Sand." "Runaway Horses," released in 1989, spawned hit singles "Leave a Light On" and "Summer Rain."
Carlisle rejoined The Go-Go's in 1994 for a short-lived but widely acclaimed reunion, then returned to her solo career. Her most recent new solo album, "Voila," was released in 2007. After touring with a reunited Go-Go's early in the 2010s, Carlisle released a new song called "Sun" as part of the 2013 compilation album "Icon." Further catalog releases appeared in the next year, including double-disc reissues from Edsel in 2014 and a new compilation called "The Collection."
Gender Health Center Founders Grand Marshals
Two founders and leaders of the Gender Health Center, Executive Director Ben Hudson and Operations Manager Rachael Hudson, have been voted Community Grand Marshals of the Sacramento Pride Parade. The online vote was conducted via social media.
"As the child of queer parents who came of age in the '60s, it has always been our family tradition to attend Pride parades to celebrate the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969," Ben Hudson said. "I am deeply honored to have the Sacramento queer community nominate Rachael and me as Grand Marshals of our Pride Parade in recognition of the work we do at Gender Health Center to create access to healthcare and advocacy as an act of social justice.
"Social justice is a value the LGBTQ community was built on, and it is this community's belief in justice that holds up the roof at Gender Health Center. We have simply made the space available for healing to begin."
"I am so honored that my community sees the work I do at Gender Health Center as important," added Rachael Hudson, "because helping my community become stronger, happier people just feels like love to me."
The Gender Health Center is a Sacramento non-profit organization focused on providing an accessible therapy and counseling program for the gender variant community. The organization works to provide education, advocacy and health and mental health services with a specialization in gender and sexual identities.
Gender Health Center Clinical Director David Nylund, Ph.D., LCSW, said Ben and Rachael's work has not only changed the lives of many in the transgender community but also has provided invaluable training in gender and sexual identity issues for numerous mental health professionals.
"As longstanding advocates and voices for the transgender community, Ben and Rachael are truly deserving of this recognition. Their tireless efforts have now come to fruition, and the Gender Health Center has become this amazingly rich, empowering resource for transgender individuals."
Sacramento Pride is a program of the Sacramento LGBT Community Center and is the largest source of funding for the Center's programs and services. The Center is open to everyone and is specifically aimed to serve marginalized populations within the LGBT community that span the spectrum of demographics in terms of age, race, gender, and economic status, from the very young who participate in Girl Scout Rainbow Troop, to elders in the Seniors Together group.
The Center offers programs for those newly coming out and those new to Sacramento. The programs promote health and wellness, economic empowerment, and education. They provide peer support for individual community members, meeting them wherever they are in life. The Center provides unique services for at-risk youth, a free weekly legal clinic, HIV/AIDS prevention and support services, transgender support, and numerous discussion groups and other activities for LGBT adults. The Center is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. For more information about the Center and its work, go to http://saccenter.org/.
For more information, visit http://www.sacramentopride.org