Dallas’ LGBTQ+ Community Balances Safety and Joy During a Tumultuous Year for Pride

In late June 2019, Danny Cabrera stepped on board an American Airlines plane as part of the company’s first all-LGBTQ+ flight crew. When he stepped off the plane, the longtime flight attendant-who also performs as the drag queen Liquor Mini-was in New York City for a WorldPride event that became one of the biggest gatherings of its kind in world history.

Now, six years later, it feels like Pride is a little different.

Corporate sponsors have backed out of Pride celebrations or significantly reduced their involvement, creating shortfalls of hundreds of thousands of dollars for events across the country. Anheuser-Busch, for instance, ended its 30-year sponsorship of St. Louis Pride. Cabrera says that President Trump’s anti-DEI posture is clearly working (“He gives people a platform for their hatred,” he says of the president) but he also chides companies for taking the easy way out.

“I think when the Trump administration gave companies the opportunity to cut their DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion programs] altogether, they did it because they were afraid they wouldn’t get the support from the government,” Cabrera says. “But they also did it because it saved them a lot of money.”

Because of these cuts, Cabrera says it’s more important than ever to celebrate Pride in Dallas, and everywhere. The question is how to celebrate safely at a time when the LGBTQ+ community is, as he puts it, facing “one attack after another.”

At the federal level, the Trump administration eliminated a specialized hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. In Texas, a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills were filed in this year’s legislative session, and those that passed will limit young Texans’ abilities to receive gender-affirming care.

Then, as usual, there are the more tangible forms of bigotry. A spate of far-right groups are protesting Pride events across the country, including some in Dallas, Arlington and Fort Worth.

Shortly before he was interviewed for this story, Cabrera saw anti-LGBTQ+ protestors in “the gayborhood,” on the corner of Cedar Springs and Throckmorton.

“I think, for the most part, if you stay in your safe space, I don’t think our community feels that threatened,” Cabrera says. “If you go anywhere outside of that, it can get scary. And sometimes people will come into our safe spaces and threaten our everyday livelihood.”

Caution and Concern

By some measures, Texas is still marginally ahead of other states in terms of LGBTQ+ safety. One recent study analyzed discriminatory laws and the number of hate crimes to compile an LGBTQ” safety report card, and Texas earned a “C.” That grade was good enough for number 25 on the ranking of all 50 states (13 of which received an “F”).

“Lord, driving through Oklahoma alone as a trans woman was terrifying,” says Lillian, a local college student. “You walk into a place and everyone’s looking at you weird. I see people watching me like, ‘Oh, which restroom is she going to go to?'” (Oklahoma was one of the states that earned an “F.”)

Even still, Lillian asked the Observer to only use her first name. She came out as transgender in 2024, and she says the threat of physical or verbal abuse looms large in her everyday decision-making.

“Something I consider when I go out in public is, ‘Who am I going to be?’ I mean, I keep my head on a swivel, make sure I’m usually going out with friends. Or if I’m going out by myself, I almost always try to stay in my vehicle. I guess I’m trying to keep a semi-low profile, most of the time.” 

Lillian emphasizes that the LGBTQ+ community can’t and shouldn’t rely on support from the government or local authorities for protection. In her words, “We keep us safe.”

For her, that means utilizing mutual aid networks and leaning on the fellow members of their university’s Progressive Student Union, through which she and her friends are helping one another get access to hormone replacement therapy.

Healthcare is often top of mind for Javier Enriquez, a lifelong Texan and the co-founder of the Dallas Social Queer Organization. Through events like Hella Gay Trivia at Sue Ellen’s, Enriquez and his colleagues raise money for LGBTQ+ programming that affirms and promotes mental health. Enriquez also works at Prism Health North Texas, which connects people living with HIV to the health services they need.

He spends a lot of his time trying to build relationships with people and organizations throughout Dallas, and recently, he’s heard plenty of people talk about moving out of Texas.

“I think that is incredibly valid, but I also understand that, for a lot of people, moving is not an option because of financial barriers or the family they have here,” he says. “I think that’s where we have to fill the gap as a community stakeholder.”

In Enriquez’s view, by connecting people to healthcare and advocating for greater access to HIV services, Prism is an important piece in a larger Dallas puzzle, trying to make Texas a safer place for everyone, even if it takes more time.

His natural optimism was on full display when talking, despite the fact that he’d recently injured his arm riding his bike. He’s especially happy that House Bill 50, which would require healthcare providers to offer HIV screenings during routine STD check-ups, passed in the Texas House this past session. Even though it didn’t pass in the Senate, Enriquez argues that the bill’s bipartisan support bodes well for the future.

“We were able to meet with somewhere between 30 to 40 representatives and senators, and something that surprised me is that a lot of these folks and a lot of their staffers don’t have a lot of numbers when it comes to how HIV is impacting their districts. When you share the numbers, and you share how Texas is number four in the nation for people living with HIV, you see their eyes go wide. And they see how this isn’t a left or right issue.”

Outside of his day job and his time-consuming side gig as a trivia and event host, Enriquez sees plenty of examples of how Dallas’ queer community is “adaptive.”

“If you look back in our history, we’ve always been resilient,” he says.

That word – resilient – came up a lot in interviews for this story. And a key part of that resiliency is, as Lillian put it, keeping each other safe. That means sometimes members of the community need to educate each other, too.

Roscoe Compton-Kelly is the membership president of the Turtle Creek Chorale, and he also performs as the drag queen Shantaè Morgan. He helped organize an “Ask Me Anything” panel for the chorale, in which chorus members could safely ask questions of their transgender and non-binary colleagues.

“Even within the community, we have people that don’t necessarily have all the knowledge, and they want to be able to understand and advocate,” he says.

Compton-Kelly hosts or participates in bingo, drag shows, and other events throughout June and beyond, and he says there’s an extra vigilance that comes with celebrating Pride nowadays. He monitors social media for any talk of protests or antagonism from far-right groups.

Two Dallas bar owners told the Observer the same thing: They monitor social media throughout June, but they can’t afford to do much else, and they worry additional security could scare off customers. Neither owner wanted to speak on the record, out of fear that far-right actors might see their name and identify their venue as a Pride-friendly establishment.

Not Scared Away

This cloud of fear hasn’t kept Cabrera from celebrating Pride. He travelled to D.C. for WorldPride, and shortly after, he participated in an Arlington Pride celebration that some sources say was attended by as many as 20,000 people.

Arlington’s annual Pride event has boomed since its inception, starting at around 1,000 attendees in 2022 and growing each year. It quickly became one of Cabrera’s favorite celebrations.

“A lot of times at Pride Celebrations, you see people who just want to be a part of something,” he says. “They just want to feel like they’re with their people.”

Last year, in Arlington, Cabrera met many LGBTQ kids who made him think about what it was like for him to grow up in “a little town in Illinois.”

“There was nobody like me. Nobody. So, I wish I could be in those kids’ shoes where they’re around their people at such a young age.”

It was clear some of the kids in Arlington were already friends, and they were making new connections as they handed out bracelets.

“They were just excited to be celebrated for that one moment,” he says. “I don’t know where they came from or where they live or what kind of life they live, but for that one moment, you could just see the light in their eyes because they’re celebrating the fact that they can just be themselves.”