Luther said it fills a gap for teens during Pride. Soon, Luther hopes to see more programming for queer youth, maybe even a club. “And so I was like, ‘OK, well then let’s try.’”
“And the answer I got from everybody was, ‘There aren’t any, but there should be,'” she said. She got involved in the planning after asking friends and folks in the nonprofit world what programs were available for queer teens in Juneau. Stephanie Luther is an education specialist at AWARE, a domestic violence shelter in Juneau. “Tie-dying is super fun, and also rainbow,” he said. Callum Marks displays his tie-dye-stained hands at Juneau’s first youth Pride party on June 20, 2019. Marks would know - the 18-year-old just graduated from Thunder Mountain High School last month.Īs far as he and the other organizers can tell, the party was the first of its kind in Juneau. “Because, you know, queer youth really are going through a time.
I think people will,” he said.īesides just showing up at the Zach Gordon Youth Center, Marks hoped the middle and high school students at the party would find a safe space “to talk about the stuff that they don’t get to talk about in everyday life,” he said. On the morning of the youth Pride party, Callum Marks didn’t know what to expect. But it also featured something new this year: a party just for teens. Pride week in Juneau included a pub crawl, Pride prom and queer trivia. Juneau drag queen Gigi Monroe performs at the youth Pride party on June 20, 2019.