St Pete Pride welcomed over 300,000 people to the Sunshine City last year, a number organizers expect to top in 2025. Festivities culminate June 27-29 after more than a month of events.
Leading the charge has been Dr. Byron Green-Calisch, board president. He oversaw the nonprofit’s nationwide search for a new executive director and the restructuring of its 11-person board while helping plan this year’s 23rd annual celebration.
The board hired Bior Guigni in January. She previously served as the chairperson for USA Wrestling and the CEO of Beat the Streets New England.
“Bior had well-documented experience and was anchored here to the Tampa Bay region,” Green-Calisch shared. “We were overjoyed not only with her experience, but also her connection to youth — she’s brought a really deep, rich perspective.”
“I’ve always been a hospitality-driven person,” Guigni added. “Everything that I’ve done has been to serve others and to bring communities together … and what led me to St Pete Pride was the need to engage more with my community.”
That’s true of St Pete Pride’s entire board. With Green-Calisch, it includes veteran members Stephanie Morge and Darius Lightsey, who serve as vice president and secretary, along with Molly Robison who has served in various roles over the years.
Alexander Green is board treasurer, while fellow newcomers Zoe Blair-Andrews, Trent Brock, Susan DiDino, Travis Geerdes, DeMario Jives and Chris Trevena round out the body. Guigni’s work with the team officially began in March, when St Pete Pride announced its 2025 theme, “Rooted In,” and this year’s 11 signature events.
“While our community knows the greatest form of resistance is JOY, we also recognize that this is a time of uncertainty, fear and sadness for our entire community, especially our sibs of the Trans experience,” St Pete Pride shared.
“Our Pride theme this year works to encompass both,” they continued. “The mighty Banyan tree that represents the St. Petersburg community and traditionally symbolizes wisdom, longevity and interconnectedness is both blooming above ground and rooted beneath the ground with the beautiful colors of Pride. This Pride season, St Pete Pride challenges every community member, ally and accomplice to ask themselves, ‘What is YOUR Pride Rooted In?’”
Green-Calisch calls the theme “a tribute to the deep roots we’ve planted here in St. Petersburg.” He says St Pete Pride is “rooted in resistance, in resilience, in love — and most importantly, community.”
That’s been on display since their 23rd season began May 2 with Shades of Pride. Its annual celebration of Black, queer joy elevated “the journeys of Black queer individuals — past, present and future,” welcoming 250 supporters to Nova 535.
Lightsey, who chairs the event, noted “St Pete Pride has been intentional about providing programming for all the diverse communities within the LGBTQIA spectrum.”
“All of our Pride events this year will emphasize how Pride is rooted in love, courage, resilience, resistance and community,” he promised, and they continued with the 2025 Mx St Pete Pride pageant May 25 at The Palladium. The third annual competition crowned St Pete Pride’s new Royal Court in “an unforgettable celebration of talent, authenticity and queer excellence.”
Nearly 20 contestants participated this year. Seduction Dickerson was crowned Miss St Pete Pride 2025, Dioscar DeMilo was crowned Mr. St Pete Pride 2025 and Roman Lewinsky was crowned Mx. St Pete Pride 2025.
Dickerson made history with her win. The lesbian entertainer became the first cisgender female to take the crown.
“With having what I thought was a roadblock, I was overwhelmed with joy knowing that I had just made history by introducing the pageantry system to the cisgender female community,” she says.
The organization “represents love, acceptance, visibility and empowerment,” Dickerson also notes. She’s excited to represent St Pete Pride because its “community spirit promotes equality, education, diversity and awareness about LGBTQIA+ obstacles.”
DeMilo calls St Pete Pride a platform for involvement, allowing him “to share and inspire others to feel welcome to dream and be themselves.” He notes that “as a gay man I know what it feels like not belonging.”
“St Pete Pride is a reminder that I am allowed to be happy and I am allowed to have a future in this world,” he adds. “I can’t wait to see everyone being proud of themselves. Be proud of who you are because you deserve it.”
Lewinsky agrees. The nonbinary performer lives in Orlando but has fallen in love with St. Petersburg.
“As a new ‘visitor’ I’m starting to learn that love is love in this community and it’s truly a network of loving individuals who all have a common goal,” they explain. “This court is filled with individuals who truly are passionate about the artform and the community. Each one of us has a different ‘drag’ background that I think is going to help us out collectively!”
Audiences have seen that for themselves since May 29, when members of the Royal Court first appeared with St Pete Pride. Its board assembled at St. Petersburg City Hall with elected officials to raise the Pride flag for the 12th year in a row.
“It is you who made this organization as large as we have gotten, it is you who have sustained us for the last 22 years and into our 23rd season,” Green-Calisch told the crowd. “I am grateful for the roots that have sustained us. This community is rooted in resilience. It is rooted in tradition. It is rooted in love, but above all, we are rooted in St. Pete.”
St Pete Pride’s Kick-Off Block Party followed June 1 in the Grand Central District and their Youth and Family Day returned June 7. The third annual event included their first-ever Pet Pride Parade:
St Pete Pride’s 2025 Stonewall Reception was then held June 12. The annual fundraiser honors the origins of Pride and supports their work as a nonprofit.
Morge was among the first to address attendees.
“I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve been asked why we host Pride in June, given the brutal summer heat,” she said, “but our response is always the same. We are rooted in history.
“June 28, 1969 marked the beginning of the Stonewall uprising … a series of events between police and LGBTQ+ protesters [that] stretched over six days,” she continued. “…the events that unfolded over the next six days fundamentally changed the discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ activism in the United States.”
Jay Toole, an LGBTQ+ activist who was there, later detailed her firsthand account.
“Every spectrum of color, every spectrum of sexuality, was out there,” she recalled. “There were hundreds of people, but it wasn’t just us. It was straight people out there with their children. There were Vietnam protesters out there … [and] guys from the Black Panthers out there.
“Hundreds of people were out there,” Toole stressed. “Gay, straight, Black, white, it didn’t matter — it was a moment in time where every person came together and said, ‘Stop. We have to stop this.’”
Green-Calisch spoke next, honoring former St Pete Pride Secretary Stanley Solomons for his 17 years of service. He also introduced this year’s grand marshals.
The 2025 honorees are Wendy Vernon, PFLAG Safety Harbor founder and president, and Alex Quinto, Equality Florida’s Safe and Healthy Schools regional manager and the co-leader of St Pete Pride’s Student Advisory Board. He also entertains as drag performer Alice Marie Gripp.
St Pete Pride announced six nominees May 29 and voting was live until June 2. Vernon says she was shocked by the recognition.
“There are so many deserving people in our community, I was honored just to be nominated alongside them,” she says. “Our trans and gender expansive loved ones’ rights are under attack — at the state and national level — and this has emboldened local people to spread hate and disinformation.
“LGBTQ+ folks’ existence is resistance, so it’s so important to me to mobilize allies and collectively use our privilege to amplify the needs of our LGBTQ+ community,” Vernon continues. “They are my chosen family, and I will do anything to shield them from these attacks. I will continue to lead with love to create spaces for the community to heal and celebrate queer joy.”
Quinto, who was also a grand marshal in 2023, calls this year’s honor emotional. He says it was St Pete Pride where he “learned that queerness could be joyful, public and powerful.”
“To be seen again by this community, not just for what I do but for who I am, is overwhelming in the best way,” he explains. “There’s something incredibly powerful about being recognized both as a professional advocating in policy spaces and as a drag artist using performance as a form of activism … this honor affirms that they’re not just compatible — they’re both essential.”
Each will lead this year’s St Pete Pride parade on June 28, set to begin after the 2025 Trans March. The finale weekend was also preceded by Get Nude June 14, a partnership with the Tampa Bay Black Lesbians, Transtastic on June 18 and will follow the inaugural Womyn in Comedy June 21.
St Pete Pride’s big weekend will officially begin June 27 with the Friday Night Concert with headliner Durand Bernarr. The Grammy-nominated artist will lead a show featuring local talent at Jannus Live.
“To have pride is to foster community anchored in love, inclusion and safety. To shine light in places of darkness and taking collective action to safeguard the inalienable rights of future generations,” he says. “I securely rest on the shoulders of Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin, Marsha P. Johnson and countless others who tirelessly fought with courage and conviction so that I — we — can live fully, freely and unapologetically in our truth.”
The 2025 Parade Day and Festival will feature additional headliners like TikTok personality Chrissy Chlapecka, “American Song Contest” alum Grant Knoche— who says “there’s nothing better than getting to share my music with a crowd that brings [Pride’s] kind of love and energy” — and two fan favorite “Drag Race” stars.
Audiences will enjoy performances from Denali, who can currently be seen on “All Stars” season 10, and “Canada’s Drag Race” winner Priyanka, also of “We’re Here” fame. Read our interview with the entertainer here.
St Pete Pride will return to the Grand Central District for its final event of season. The Grand Central Street Festival is expected to welcome hundreds of thousands of Pridegoers for entertainment and more. Highlights will include Cocktail’s main stage with headliners Kameron Ross, Aja, Dawn and Martha Wash.
“For over two decades, this city has shown up: marching, organizing, celebrating and standing with one another through every high and low,” Green-Calisch says. “…Let us carry our grief, our rage and our hope together. Let us build a future rooted in radical inclusion, unapologetic pride and revolutionary love. With every step forward, we remain rooted in joy, justice and you.”
St Pete Pride culminates June 27-29 in St. Petersburg. For more information about this year’s event read the official guide, available in print during this year’s festivities and digitally here.
