Brian Sullivan and Dahron Johnson
One of the most notable things about this year’s Nashville Pride Parade grand marshals is how good they are at hyping each other up.
“What’s really cool is that we’re all friends, because we’ve worked together in different circles,” Brian Sullivan, one of this year’s four marshals, tells the Scene. “To me, it’s the highest honor as an advocate, as an activist. It’s like the Super Bowl.”
When I speak with Sullivan, he’s quick to mention that his fellow marshal Dahron Johnson was the first openly trans person to speak on the floor of Tennessee’s House of Representatives. When I speak with Johnson, she lists Dr. Marisa Richmond’s accomplishments as if she were giving a presentation on the power of LGBTQ visibility. Richmond, also a 2024 grand marshal, has been a professor at MTSU; she is a member of the Metro Historical Commission; she’s served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Excellence, Equity and Economic Opportunities for Black Americans.
This is a tight-knit but extraordinarily inclusive crew, and that’s just what Nashville Pride Parade needs. Taking place on Broadway between Eighth and Second avenues, Nashville’s event is the largest Pride parade in the state — more than 40,000 people are expected to line the streets. That’s a lot of visibility, but that’s part of why it’s important.
“The work of legislative advocacy is not a solitary pursuit,” Johnson explains, “but it’s something that’s done in committee rooms and on phone calls. So as I’ve had the opportunity to be part of these moments that have generated so much more visibility, I’ve reflected a lot on what visibility means. … Other trans folks, other gender-diverse folks, other folks that have any type of lived difference, when they’re able to see somebody of a similar lived difference, they can say, ‘Wow, somehow they got on a path that allowed them to get from where they were to where they are. Maybe that’s possible for me too.’”
As this year’s Pride grand marshals — rounded out by country musician Brooke Eden — lead the parade down Broadway, past the bars and honky-tonks, they will likely be thinking of all the other folks who are experiencing the Pride spotlight with them in spirit.
“I’m a survivor of conversion therapy, and I had a suicide attempt,” Sullivan says. “And just to think that I could have missed out on knowing this beautiful community, and knowing the hope that there is now — that’s kind of what keeps me going.
He continues: “Whenever I feel like, ‘God, I can’t, I can’t walk into the Capitol again, there’s just this heaviness,’ I think about some kid out in the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee, and how, if we fight for them, they can see us and think, ‘You know what, I do have a great purpose. And I can do this and I can live my life authentically and be happy.’ That’s what keeps me going.”
“The sense that there are people who can do this,” says Johnson, “that sends a signal to me that this might be possible for me too. That’s Pride at its core.”
Also this year, Nashville Pride will recognize legendary female impersonator Tina Louise and, posthumously, the late Mr. Charlie Brown with Pride Trailblazer Awards. Emily April Allen will receive the Philanthropic Business Award, and Michelle Sciarappa will receive the Pride Community Award.
Meeting this year’s Pride Parade grand marshals, highlighting the best of the Nashville Pride Festival and more
