08/03/2026
Our Grand Marshal! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️💜
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ To Fayette Pride, Thanks For Everything - TAYLOR ALXNDR 👸🏽💙
Being chosen as the first-ever grand marshal for the first-ever Fayette Pride is one of the biggest honors of my life & entertaining career. As someone who grew up in Griffin, GA - right across the Fayette County line off Hwy 92 - the idea of a visible and highly supported LGBTQ+ event in my neck of the woods always felt like a fairy tale. But this dream became a reality and I’m so incredibly thankful to have been a part of it - yet alone to be able to host the Main Stage events.��For years I have wanted to bring drag and LGBTQ+ spaces & events to my hometown of Griffin. For years I have reached out to the very few places I felt safe in Griffin, only to get no replies or declines. I contacted coffeeshops, small theaters, music venues, educational halls, etc. - every inquiry ended in a no or no response. I never gave up, but with every unsuccessful attempt it felt more and more unlikely to happen.��And within this last year, possibilities began to sprout. I met Pride community groups and event organizers in Henry County. I began hosting drag bingo at Revival Wines, a Black-owned winery located in downtown Fayetteville. Soon I found out that my hometown of Griffin had been having Pride events for some years, and was hosting their biggest one in June (had to miss it because it was during SFQP weekend). I connected with the PFLAG chapter of Peachtree City, and so many others.��When I received the email asking me to be grand marshal, I balled my eyes out. I immediately accepted the offer, but I feel like it took me days to process it. There were so many feelings all happening at the same time, but the central one being joy. Joy that this event was happening. Joy that I was even included in any of it. Joy that the LGBTQ+ folks of Fayetteville and surrounding areas can experience this. And joy that others who, like myself, moved away to be able to live our truths, could finally see that there is and has always been love and support in our neck of the woods.
For my closing number, I wanted to perform something that spoke to an experience myself & several others have always felt. The experience of realizing your hometown might not be the best place for you to live your truth. And like many q***r + trans folks who come to that realization, we often flock to cities where we can be out, loud, and proud. Some folks aren’t privileged to do so. And while it feels liberating to be in a city and find others like yourself, many of us sometimes feel a little bit guilty that we were able to move away. For myself - I never hated my hometown, and still don’t. I hated the attitudes and homophobia and hatred that drove me out. I spoke about that right before my performances - and I started to cry. I didn’t plan to and it kind of just burst out of me.
Because these are feelings I’ve lived with for 2 decades of my life - from when I was first shoved out the closet at 13. And in sharing that, I met so so so many people who came up to me afterwards and felt the same way. Teenagers in school who were already planning to move away for the same reasons. Trans folks who made the decision to move away so they could transition and not face violence. Q***r couples who contemplated moving because they’re afraid to hold their partners hand in public. It was heartwarming but also so deeply saddening that this was a feeling so many others have felt - even moreso that there are q***r + trans youth still feeling this.
So I performed “Wide Open Spaces” by The Chicks l, into “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan (with some of the city names in the song subbed out for Griffin, Fayette Pride, and Atlanta lol). To see others singing those words back to me, also crying, felt communal and healing.
I have so many people to thank:��First & foremost, thank you so much to the Fayette Pride committee for bringing this event to life & including me on this ride. It has truly been an honor being your first-ever grand marshal. Like I said, I hope you all know how incredible and important the work you have done is. I can’t wait to see Fayette Pride continue to grow and to always be in support of it all!��I want to thank my sister Molly for being with me on that day. It meant a lot to me to be there as grand marshal, but it meant just as much to me to be there with my best friend, who grew up there. I wanted her to see just how affirming her hometown has become. We both know how alienating our hometowns have been when we were younger. I hope you saw & felt all the love in your home city, sister.��I want to thank Revival Wines for coming to me in March to start doing drag bingo. So quickly I was connected to a whole community I didn’t know existed and I truly don’t think any of this would have happened if you all hadn’t welcomed me into your space. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.��Thank you to every single person who came out to Fayette Pride - I hope you know that you are included in this historic event. It would not have happened and been so magical without you coming and taking up space in the name of community. Thank you to all of the community members, businesses, sponsors, representatives, volunteers, etc. - you all made this possible.��And I want to say thank you to younger Taylor. Thank you for never giving up on yourself. Thank you for sticking around to see today. Thank you for never changing who you were. You were very brave at a young age - being out in high school, making Griffin High School’s first ever gay-straight alliance. You knew what being so out and visible in the small bubble of high school meant, but you didn’t care. I’m so proud of you. You didn’t know it then, but all the struggles that forced you to uproot yourself from Griffin and plant yourself in Atlanta just served as fertilizer to help you bloom. And you’ve grown into someone who can help plant seeds of joy and possibilities for all those who are also struggling to bloom. Good job, Taylor.���Photos by Faye�Hair by Galatea��✨✨✨
