Youth Pride Day 2003 - Saturday, April 12th

WASHINGTON, DC (April 11, 2003) – The Youth Pride Alliance is very proud to announce the seventh annual Youth Pride Day celebration this Saturday, April 12th, from noon until 5pm. The event is located at P Street Park (23rd and P Sts., NW) in Washington, DC.

Youth Pride Day is the largest event for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) youth in the mid-Atlantic region. Last year over 2,800 young people came out for Youth Pride Day 2002, and this year, organizers are anticipating an even larger turnout. Also participating will be representatives from over fifty different organizations reaching out to GLBT youth.

This year also marks the second year of “Youth Pride Week”, a week-long celebration with events ranging from film screenings to panel discussions. Youth Pride Week culminates with Youth Pride Day and the annual Infatuation dance following the main Saturday event.

“We are very pleased with the events so far this week and look forward to an incredible Youth Pride Day this year,” said Paul Marengo, Director of Youth Pride Week. “We are very grateful for all the support we have received this year from the community.”

The keynote speakers for this year’s event are Jonathan Jaxson, 19, and Jonathan Perry, 26. Jaxson is a youth television personality who has interviewed the likes of the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync and also won an Emmy award for his cable television show “The Edge”. Perry led GLBT issues to the forefront of Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina, a historically black college. Both Jaxson and Perry will be available for interviews on-site at Youth Pride Day.

Major sponsors for this year include Brother Help Thyself, Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, Human Rights Campaign, Whitman-Walker Clinic, and the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry. Media partners include the Washington Blade and Metro Weekly.

For more information, please visit www.youthpridedc.org.

The Youth Pride Alliance celebrates the dignity and courage of all young people as they discover their identities as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight, and challenges society to stop the hate, the violence, the fear, the isolation, and the denial. Every young person deserves to live, love, and be loved.

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