For LGBTQIA+ Orioles fans, Pride Night shows that visibility still matters

Growing up in a small town in North Carolina, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Heidi N Closet said she didn’t always have access to the opportunities she has today.

So when she was invited to serve as the Bird Bath guest splasher as part of the Orioles’ Pride Night festivities, she didn’t hesitate to say yes.

As Pride celebrations across baseball have become a battleground in the culture wars, fans who gathered at Camden Yards on Friday said the Orioles’ Pride Night served as a reminder that visibility still matters.

“It’s important to see that an organization as big as the Orioles is choosing to stand with the LGBTQIA+ community at this time,” Closet said. “It brings a little hope.”

That sense of hope carried added significance against a backdrop of recent controversies surrounding Pride events in baseball.

On June 12, three different San Francisco Giants pitchers protested the team’s Pride Night celebration by adding a Bible verse to their rainbow-themed caps, part of a larger conservative attempt to reclaim the rainbow. Less than a week later, Atlantic League of Professional Baseball team York Revolution forfeited their 11th annual Pride Night game after players refused to wear rainbow-sleeved jerseys.

Closet said Friday offered a different picture.

Before taking over the Bird Bath hose midway through the second inning, Closet spent some time at a meet and greet and just walking through the concourse.

There, she saw something that many LGBTQIA+ people spent decades fighting for: the ability for multiple generations of queer people to celebrate openly in the same space.

“It just proves the point that we’ve always been here,” Closet said. “We just haven’t been as visible because we haven’t had as many opportunities or we had to hide it from the outside world.”

That rang true for one group in particular: OWLS.

Founded in 1980, OWLS stands for older, wiser lesbians. The organization primarily serves as a way to bring together lesbians over the age of 40 in the Maryland, Virginia and D.C. area. The group frequently arranges social gatherings such as book clubs, dinners, and even the occasional baseball game.

While many of the women who are a part of OWLS are now out and proud, that wasn’t always the case. In the organization’s earlier days, many members wouldn’t allow a newsletter to be mailed to them unless it was in a brown unmarked envelope, out of fear of being outed.

“I realized that I was gay when I was 17, and I was terrified,” Mary Anne Klim said. “I was raised Catholic, and I thought I was going to hell for like three or four years until I accepted it and I realized that God is not somebody who would hate people because of who they love.”

Klim’s experience wasn’t unique. Many older LGBTQIA+ adults spent decades concealing their identities before feeling safe enough to live openly.

Carl Reed is one of those people. He attended Friday’s game alongside Patrick Locklin and dozens of fellow members of the Baltimore Frontrunners, an LGBTQIA+-inclusive running and walking club.

For Reed, the evening was a reminder of how much had changed.

“I enjoy it a whole lot. Just taking it all in,” Carl Reed said. “I’m 70 something, and it’s a lot different than when I was growing up and a lot better.”

Reed has witnessed much of that change firsthand.

Modern Pride celebrations trace their roots to the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969 although Pride Month wasn’t officially recognized by the federal government until 1999. Since then, LGBTQIA+ rights have expanded in many ways, including the nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage as a fundamental right with the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

As Pride celebrations became more commonplace across the country, professional sports teams also began embracing the annual tradition.

The Orioles joined that trend in 2018, hosting their first official Pride Night at Camden Yards. Since then, the event has grown into one of the club’s signature themed nights, drawing thousands of fans for pregame festivities and community celebrations.

However, not everyone believes the Orioles’ Pride celebration has maintained the same level of investment over the years.

“My biggest complaint is that they used to have a really nice Pride Day,” Geri Langan said. “You could buy a VIP pass… and they eliminated that. So as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. They go through the motions of saying, ‘Oh, Pride.’”

Langan wasn’t alone in calling out what she viewed as a pullback in Pride programming.

Even with those frustrations, what the event does provide is a safe space for the community.

“It’s good to be here, because you feel like you can really be yourself,” Klim said. “In Baltimore, I still would not walk down the street holding hands, just because, although Baltimore itself is pretty welcome and open, you always got the one redneck out there. But here, at this game, it feels safe.”

For many attendees, that sense of safety was exactly what made events like Pride Night meaningful. But they also acknowledged that the progress the LGBTQIA+ community has made over the past several decades is not something they should be taking for granted.

Locklin was working for Equality Maryland, a non-profit advocacy organization now known as FreeState Justice, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges. He remembers celebrating what felt like a watershed moment for the movement.

More than a decade later, however, the current political climate has reminded him that progress is neither permanent nor guaranteed.

“There’s always more work to do,” he said. “And I think we can see that there’s other people in our community that we need to protect.”

For attendees like Locklin, protecting the community also means ensuring it remains visible. Several said that in a political climate they view as increasingly uncertain, events like Pride Night are public affirmations that the LGBTQIA+ community continues to exist, organize and support one another.

“I feel like it’s been very important, especially with the administration and all the things that’s going on in today’s world, to be as visible as possible,” Closet said.

That message echoed throughout Camden Yards Friday night, from the 15,000 rainbow giveaway jerseys to the Pride flags flying in the right field flag court to Closet hosing down fans sitting in the Bird Bath.

For Shanita Gaddy, the significance of the evening could be distilled into a single sentiment.

“We’re here. We’re queer and we’re not going nowhere,” she said.