Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on June 11, 2022.
SUMMIT STATION — As 64-year-old Buster Smith and 84-year-old Charlie Keller looked at the young, diverse crowd enjoying Schuylkill County PrideFest, they thought of how much has changed since they were that age.
“It’s very different for this area,” said Keller, born outside of Ashland and now living with Smith in Philadelphia. “Nice to see people feeling free. In my age, you couldn’t do that.”
“His generation, it wasn’t even acknowledged,” Smith said. “We’re both gay, and we love to see this thing happening in Schuylkill County. I think it’s wonderful to see the diversity, to see the kids with their parents, and the young couples walking around.”
“There wasn’t any bars or anywhere to go to,” Keller said, “and when you did go, in Philadelphia, the cops would come. They’d stop and come around and put a flashlight in everyone’s face. It was a different world, way back then.”
“And now the kids have an opportunity to find out who they are,” Smith said. “When we were coming up, you never heard anything about being transgender or non-binary. It just wasn’t a thing.”
Drag queens and fair queens converged at the Schuylkill County Fairgrounds on Saturday, coming together with art, games, performances and vendors celebrating the LGBTQ community.
“Coming here will really show my support and make sure that everyone is welcome at the Schuylkill County Fair,” reigning Fair Queen Haley Rymarkiewicz said.
“I do drag for the youth, so they know there is a future for them,” said Justice, a drag king based in Wilkes-Barre. “Today is all about community coming together and having a place that they can be themselves without judgement, which is something this place needs.”
A Pottsville Pride event was held at the Lions Club Amphitheater in 2020 and 2021, but the growing number of participants required a move to a larger venue.
“I’m really excited to see so many people here,” said A.J. Skipper, vice chair of Youth Empowerment Support LGBTQ Schuylkill, the group that organized PrideFest.
Skipper grew up in Cressona before moving to the Poconos and becoming a professional artist.
“It was tough at times,” she said. “I definitely met supportive people throughout the county, but there were definitely more problems than good. But we’re really hoping that having this event annually is gonna change all that.”
Skipper sold her own paintings and jewelry at the fair. Many of the works were Pride-related, while others were more personal, detailing Skipper’s struggles with her own identity. One, depicting a woman turning into a tree, was painted during her “worst bout of gender dysphoria.”
“I felt more like nature, like an organism, than a woman,” she said.
Tasha Rudolph, a friend of Skipper’s girlfriend, came to PrideFest from New York with her artwork and her therapeutic parrot, Lily.
“Everybody’s very friendly,” Rudolph said, “and I like the openness and the warmth.”
Jess Ivee, of Pottsville, did readings with the Queer Tarot, a deck designed by trans artists. Every character featured on the cards is modeled after a real person. Ivee has noticed a great interest in tarot within the LGBTQ community. Tarot cards are heavily symbolic, laden with ambiguity and hidden meanings meant to help people understand themselves. Like Skipper’s art, they are fluid and open to interpretation, even when deeply personal.
“I think that’s why a lot of the community likes it,” Ivee said, “because it shows power and agony. Tarot cards have a lot of emotion. That humanity in it, the pleasure, the pain, is thought-provoking.”
Alfie Keno, 18, of Pottsville, got a reading from Ivee.
“It’s another form of expressing your true self,” they said “and getting to know your true self, and there’s nobody fighting harder to be their true self than the LGBTQ community.”
Keno got to express themself at PrideFest on Saturday.
“So far, I love it,” they said. “It feels amazing that I can just be 100 percent myself, especially living in an area where I only find that kind of acceptance in pockets. At no time today will I have to hide any portion of myself. It just gives me hope.”
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