Candidate for Ohio House Dylan Gross addresses the Pride event in Lima Saturday at the Allen County Courthouse.
LIMA —About three times as many people as expected showed up for Pride in Lima on Saturday.
The crowd of about 60 gathered to hear remarks from organizers from the Ohio Student Activist Alliance and Northwest Ohio Trans Advocacy, as well as candidates for U.S. House Steve Thomas and Ohio House Dylan Gross, speak about issues affecting the LGBTQ community and to march through the streets of the city.
“This is the first event like this I’ve seen here in Lima,” Alex Rodabaugh said. “Growing up here, I was terrified to be alive. I wanted to leave immediately because I didn’t think stuff like this existed.”
“I think it was a beautiful event,” Gross, who is running for Ohio’s 78th House District seat, said. “We had a lot of great turnout and a lot of people understand the importance of the LGBTQ+ community and their roots here in Lima, so to see people from counties surrounding it is great.”
A few protesters showed up to proselytize against the event, but they were easily drowned out by the support of the crowd and drivers passing by and ignored by the marchers.
It was easy to pay attention to the speakers, as they pledged to fight for their rights and visibility and to grow the event in the future.
“I know that the counterprotesters showed up, and I’m so happy that everyone did what they were supposed to and didn’t engage,” said Garrison Bowling, of the Ohio Student Activist Alliance. “They just came and they celebrated, and it was almost like they weren’t even there. We just ignored them and had fun.”
But organizers still had one thing on their minds: standing up for themselves.
“I hope people are fired up to help fight for the rights of trans children, who are actively getting their rights taken away by House Bills 83 and 63,” said River Harrod, the Director of Youth Affairs of the Ohio Student Activist Alliance. “I hope that they call their representatives and just be as annoying as possible to let them know that we’re here and we’re not going to let their hate stand.”
“It’s easy to feel hopeless and like there’s nothing you can do,” said Arienne Childrey, of Northwest Ohio Trans Advocacy. “I want people to know that is not true. Maybe we don’t change every single mind, but we can change any that we can.”
Rodabaugh said that the event was encouraging to him in contrast to things shown on television news and that if he had had the event when he was growing up, it would have changed his life.
“I’m so glad to see this,” he said. “Sometimes you have a vision of what it’s like in small towns when all you see is the news. It’s so great to just have a real person-to-person community visual cue that you’re not alone, and it’s not all guns and murder and slaughter of children.”
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