El Pasoans danced through Downtown at the 19th Annual Pride Parade on Saturday, June 29.

“It means a lot especially because I know where we’ve come from in the past and how much change has happened even just like in the past 20 years. It’s amazing to see so much more support,” said Emerald Medrano, who was participating in the parade for the first time.

The parade was among several events in El Paso in celebration of Pride Month, including the lighting of the city’s iconic Star on the Mountain in rainbow colors for the first time this year.

This year the parade’s theme was “Spotlight on Pride: Celebrating LGBTQIA on Cinema and Stage.”

“Observing society now, more accepting in Hollywood, a lot more of ‘Love Simon,’ all the television. A lot of us, when we were younger, we grew up through the movies because we weren’t as accepted and it was harder to come out, so through TV, through ‘Will and Grace,’ ‘Queer as Folk’  back in the ’90s and earlier than that ‘Victor/Victoria.’ All the different movies helped us feel accepted. So this year, we decided to recognize that and how far Hollywood has actually pushed the acceptance of LGBTQIA in society,” said Christopher Eck, president of El Paso Sun City Pride nonprofit group that organizes the annual parade.

The parade ended at Houston Park, where a post-parade picnic awaited. The park was filled with music, food, non-alcoholic drinks and drag performances.

“I thought it was a really great honor for me, especially since my place in the parade is basically historical. In the 1980s and 1990s, I ran an HIV clinic in Texas Tech, so I took care of a lot of HIV patients at that time,” said Dr. Paul Caster, a retired physician, about being one of the Grand Marshalls for this year’s Pride Parade.

El Pasoan Saul Sustaita, a retired park ranger at the Chamizal National Memorial, this year was his first time attending the parade supporting his son. His family has participated in the past.

“In 1993, I was in St. Louis, Missouri, when Bill Clinton signed the declaration of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ at the conference that we had up there, so in a way, I fought for the civil rights of the gay people that year,” Sustaita said.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso 19th Annual Sun City Pride Parade 2024 celebrates Hollywood