Central Arkansas Pride names 2026 PRIDEFest honorees

Central Arkansas Pride has named Miss Major Griffin-Gracy as the 2026 Diamond Honoree and Sharyn Grayson, Lisa Smith and Sandy Bidwell as parade grand marshals for PRIDEFest in Little Rock. The organization will celebrate the honorees during the week of Oct. 14-18, with the parade set for Oct. 17 on Capitol Avenue.

Why it matters: - Central Arkansas Pride is using PRIDEFest to spotlight longtime LGBTQIA+ advocates whose work shaped Arkansas and national community organizing. - The honors come during LGBTQIA+ History Month and frame the event as both a celebration and a recognition of legacy activism. - The week of events is set to draw attention to Little Rock as a center for LGBTQIA+ visibility, education and community building.

What happened: - Central Arkansas Pride announced the 14th annual 2026 Arkansas PRIDEFest Diamond Honoree and parade grand marshals. - Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was named the 2026 Diamond Honoree posthumously. - Sharyn Grayson, Lisa Smith and Sandy Bidwell were named parade grand marshals. - PRIDEFest is scheduled for the week of Oct. 14-18 in Little Rock. - The parade celebration is set for Oct. 17 on Capitol Avenue.

The details: - Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was described as a Black, gender-nonconforming activist and community organizer who used all pronouns. - Griffin-Gracy witnessed the Stonewall Riots and later served as the first executive director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project. - Griffin-Gracy contributed to oral history projects including Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, The Stonewall Reader and The Stonewall Generation: LGBT Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging. - Griffin-Gracy’s memoir, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary, was published by Verso Books in 2023. - Griffin-Gracy founded House of GG and later renamed the Arkansas property Tilifi, an acronym for Telling It Like It Fuckin' Is. - The property includes a guest house, pool, hot tub, merry-go-round, gardens and more than 80 palm trees. - Griffin-Gracy was a co-executive producer of Trans in Trumpland. - Sharyn Grayson is a transgender advocate and elder who co-founded House of gg with her sister, Miss Major. - Grayson has led work at the Lavender Rights Project and the TGI Justice Project. - Grayson is CEO and senior consultant at Nonprofit & Consumer Svcs. Network in Little Rock. - Her prior roles include senior strategic advisor at the Lavender Rights Project, executive director of TGI Justice Project, director of development and transgender programs/services at Abounding Prosperity, Inc., and chief operating officer and chief financial officer at House of gg. - Lisa Smith and Sandy Bidwell are retired Army veterans. - Smith and Bidwell ran Arkansas’s biennial gay rodeo through the Diamond State Rodeo Association. - The couple has led the Diamond State Rodeo in Arkansas for a quarter century. - The rodeo association operates under the International Gay Rodeo Association, which provides safety guidelines called Horse Sense. - The Arkansas chapter’s rodeo school offers instruction in calf roping, chute dogging and barrel racing. - Diamond State provides ropes, protective vests, steer rigs and skills sessions for participants. - Bidwell said only a fraction of rodeo-school participants are ready to compete.

Between the lines: - The honorees reflect two major strands of LGBTQIA+ organizing in Arkansas: trans liberation work and rural community visibility through gay rodeo. - Central Arkansas Pride is pairing memorial recognition with living community leadership, signaling a broader effort to connect history, advocacy and local culture. - The focus on House of GG and Diamond State Rodeo suggests the organization is highlighting institutions that created durable spaces for LGBTQIA+ people outside major coastal cities.

What's next: - Central Arkansas Pride is directing people to more information about PRIDEFest on its website. - The organization is also inviting sponsorships and participation through info@arpride.org. - PRIDEFest programming will run during the Oct. 14-18 event week in Little Rock. - The Oct. 17 parade on Capitol Avenue will serve as the public centerpiece of the celebration.

The bottom line: - Central Arkansas Pride is turning its 2026 PRIDEFest into a tribute to trans activism, queer rural community and decades of Arkansas-based leadership.