Stronger Together: TC Pride’s New Parade Unit Screams, ‘You Can’t Erase Us’

Envision this: thousands of community members, allies and attendees all marching down Hennepin Avenue. No barriers to entry, signups or registration — just a unit comprised of community and togetherness.

Though the final unit this year will still feature the Minneapolis fire trucks, a new addition will be in front to start and end the parade. There will be the people: allies, supporters, friends, advocates — what makes Pride prideful.

Twin Cities Pride has announced a new unit, one that is open to all and a way to make a symbolic stance without losing joy in the day, says Twin Cities Pride Executive Director Andi Otto.

“It’s very personal,” Otto says. “As a trans man who is living in this current climate, it’s about being visible for those who can’t be. It’s about using the platform that Twin Cities Pride has to make a difference and bring awareness.”

Otto says the unit will be the last parade unit before the fire trucks, with the hope of marching down Hennepin Avenue. He adds that spectators will join as they voyage through the city, making a symbolic stance and a cap off to the parade.

“When you’re all walking together, saying, ‘We are not going anywhere. We’re not backing down,” Otto says. “You can come at us repeatedly, but this isn’t our first rodeo.”

The unit is not centered around a grandiose float or signage, but rather around people. Otto says it is open to anyone, designed to be a coming together of attendees, community and allies.

“It’s about making a better world for my kids, right?” Otto says. “I have two little kids, they’re two little girls, and it worries me to watch them grow up in a community where we’re literally taking away rights from them, and that’s personal.”

While attendance at other prides across the country is going down, Otto says that is not the case in Minnesota, in part because of the safe environment that the state fosters.

Though Twin Cities Pride had 85 artists in 2024, according to the TC Pride 2024 Impact Report, keeping it local is still at the heart of the festival, regardless of how much it grows over the years.

“Why would I have a large headliner when I can pay local artists that can pay their rent and pay their phone bills and all that stuff? Otto questions. “We have to take care of each other, or this will never work.”

Even at Fall Fest, where 25 drag performers compete to take first place, the value of giving and community rang clear as Otto says the winner looked at him and said, “Now I get to have dental surgery.”

This year, another new addition will come in the form of various buckets at every entrance, called “worry buckets,” where attendees can write down their worries on a piece of paper and put it in the bucket, allowing the bucket to hold their worries instead of themselves.

And the finish line doesn’t end there, as on June 1, Twin Cities in Motion Ambassadors will be hosting a casual 5K run/walk on the trails along the Mississippi River, with participating locations across the cities donating a portion of their proceeds to support TC Pride.

“And at the end of the day, if I can just take what the world is throwing at us right now and make it go away for even a minute, that was worth it to me,” Otto says. “And my hope is that there’s that adult or that kid that feels so alone and walks together with us in the parade and doesn’t feel so alone anymore. And sees that there is community everywhere, and they feel safe again.”

Lavender updated this article June 12 to correct an erroneous reference to the Stronger Together parade unit being at the front of the parade, rather than its actual position at the end.