The Woodlands, one of Texas’ most conservative areas, hosting pride festival

A trio of tutu wearers make their way to The Woodlands Pride Festival - Presented by Comcast in Town Green Park Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, in The Woodlands. A trio of tutu wearers make their way to The Woodlands Pride Festival - Presented by Comcast in Town Green Park Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, in The Woodlands. Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Image 1 of / 11 Caption Close The Woodlands, one of Texas’ most conservative areas, hosting pride festival 1 / 11 Back to Gallery

The Rev. Sean Steele and his friends from St. Isidore Episcopal Church taped three signs to their booth Saturday at Town Green Park, the site of The Woodlands’ first pride festival.

They advertised: “Free Dad Hugs,” “Free Mom Hugs” and “Free Pastor Hugs.”

To Steele, the parish missioner at St. Isidore, doling out free hugs — for six hours in 90 degree heat — was a way to tell people he recognizes that “throughout history, the church has caused a lot of pain and hurt and wounds in the life of LGBTQ folks.”

“Unfortunately, the way the church has operated theologically, with gay people, is they’ve used shame,” Steele said. “They’ve basically said that you are unworthy of love and belonging, that you don’t belong here. Well, there’s no better way to counteract that shame and that lie than with an incarnational movement.”

Steele and other St. Isidore members manned one of about 70 booths at Saturday’s festival. At some kiosks, people sold art and offered face painting; others focused on political advocacy for local candidates and LGBTQ causes.

Though authorities said they were not tracking attendance, organizers estimated about 4,200 people turned out for the festival. Music from DJs and live performers echoed through Town Green Park.

The Woodlands’ milestone festival is part of a statewide trend of pride celebrations taking place in outlying, suburban areas — typically conservative places where members of the LGBTQ community do not always find the same acceptance that they do in large cities.

Earlier this year, organizers held pride celebrations in Abilene, Plano, Texarkana, Tyler and Wichita Falls, according to a list compiled by OutSmart, Houston’s LGBTQ magazine.

“It’s people that are just wanting to show, ‘Don’t believe what people tell you about these small communities,’ where they think it’s a sea of red or conservative in nature,” said Robert Salcido, the statewide field director for Equality Texas.

Advocates say these events can serve as small but powerful indicators to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people living in conservative areas that they do not need to shield their identity or take refuge in big cities to celebrate LGBTQ pride.

That point was largely borne out by the local response to Saturday’s festival. The event took place without protesters; the Woodlands Township’s board did not oppose organizers as they sought and obtained a park permit; and an informal survey during the week found that few Woodlands residents were aware of the event.

Yet, in many ways, Texas appears a hostile environment to LGBTQ people. LGBTQ adults in the state are diagnosed with depressive disorders at much higher rates than non-LGBTQ adults, according to the Health and Human Services’ Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual students in Houston and Fort Worth “seriously consider” suicide at rates about three times higher than students who don’t identify as LGBTQ, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found.

Most advocates agree that straight allies will need to become more involved to create meaningful change. Pride celebrations in places such as The Woodlands are a first step, they say, not the sole solution.

Salcido, the Equality Texas field organizer, said he intended Saturday to register people to vote and make them aware of systemic LGBTQ issues, such as workplace discrimination.

Others agreed that much work is left to improve conditions for members of the LGBTQ community.

“That pain is there, and it’s real,” St. Isidore’s Steele said. “And we want to name it, and own it, and apologize for it, and then try to begin moving forward.”

Susan Cottrell, the founder of an Austin nonprofit ministering to people with LGBTQ family members, opened the festival Saturday with a prayer that seemed to lay out a theme for the event. “We gather today to celebrate the uniqueness of us, your rainbow children,” Cottrell said. “Please show us that we are all welcome, that we are all made perfectly in your image, and that our differences are extravagant gifts.”

The Woodlands’ pride festival was especially notable because it took place in one of Texas’ most staunchly conservative strongholds. The township of about 116,000 people sits mostly in Montgomery County, which voted 73 to 22 percent in favor of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

The wealthy township is made up of suburban housing, seven golf courses, a resort hotel and a mixed-use town center with shops, restaurants, housing and entertainment venues that cover about 1,000 acres. The part of the center that sits across the street from Town Green Park includes outlets such as Vineyard Vines, Kate Spade New York, J. Crew and at least three jewelry outlets.

In May, Gordy Bunch, chairman of The Woodlands Township’s board of directors, in a Facebook video told Eric Yollick, publisher of a conservative website called The Golden Hammer, that “anybody who submits an application for a park rental that complies with all the requirements is granted the park rental agreement.”

“So, is there any way that the board of the Woodlands Township could stop (the pride festival)?” Yollick asked.

Bunch told him that doing so would require a change in board policy, which would then appear “highly focused” on stopping the event.

“We have a lot of groups that do park rental, and the way it’s set up today is fair, because it doesn’t become a politicized approval process,” Bunch said.

Though Saturday’s event marks The Woodlands’ first pride festival, the township hosted a pride-themed concert featuring Kesha and Macklemore in June.

Macklemore sang his 2012 single “Same Love,” which focuses on gay and lesbian rights. Kesha, who is openly bisexual, at one point donned a rainbow skirt. Rainbow confetti rained onto the crowd after her set.

The concert took place at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion — next to Town Green Park.

jasper.scherer@chron.com