‘Love is not a secret to be hidden’: Wilsonville celebrates Pride
Published 11:57 am Monday, June 9, 2025
Chappel Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” blasted through Town Center Park last weekend, as community members received rainbow face paint, made colorful tie-dye apparel and waved rainbow-colored fans at Wilsonville’s Pride celebration.
Held in the sunny afternoon on Saturday, June 7, the event featured booths with Pride gear and activities — including a Wilsonville Pride pin designed for the city by Wilsonville High School sophomore Maleeya Rodenbeck. It also honored the city’s latest temporary Pride mural.
It is the second event of its kind in Wilsonville, growing from last year’s reception for the first Pride mural. During his speech, Mayor Shawn O’Neil said the event reflects the city’s “unwavering commitment” to ensuring all feel welcome, adding that he wants members of the LGBTQ+ community to to know they are seen, valued and “deserved to live openly and authentically — without fear, without apology and without discrimination.”
“Love is not a secret to be hidden. Identity is not a closet to be confined to. Freedom means not just the right to exist, but the right to express your existence fully and proudly, out in the open,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said that parts of national dialogue are “drifting toward intolerance, hostility and fear.”
“We must call it for what it is: an attack on the LGBTQ+ community is an attack on all of us,” O’Neil said.
Keynote speaker Robin Will, a Portland State University graduate who held a career in publishing and is member of the Oregon Queer History Collective, touched on the national conversations regarding the LBGTQ+ community and diversity as well. Will, who is 76 years old, has spent his retirement working to document and share local LGBTQ+ history and did so through his speech at the event, telling stories such as when an Oregon medical doctor who was a transgender man was forced out of the state by the medical community in the early 1900s.
He also noted the progress that has been made over time, saying members of the community have access to resources that were not previously available as well as community and ally support..
“I never do speak to a gay-friendly audience without remembering when that wouldn’t have even been possible. I would have been afraid to come out; the audience would have been afraid to come out,” Will said, adding that much has changed in the last 50 years. “I’m grateful for it, and occasionally still don’t quite believe it.”
In a statement sent after the event, Rick Wallace, who helped create the Wilsonville Pride organization, said that having a Pride event in town is “much deeper” than the convenience of not having to drive into Portland or neighboring communities. He wrote that Pride is celebrated “wherever queer people exist, in short, everywhere!”
“No one should be made to feel ashamed of who they are. We celebrate Pride because we felt shame for part of our lives, a very foundational part, and now we want to flip and reverse that shame and instead take pride in what makes us different,” Wallace said, noting that members of the LBTQ+ community have felt shame for their identities through “hateful comments on social media or elsewhere” and societal expectations of gender and sexuality through lack of representation, offhand comments and role models.
Wallace said he heard a “collective ‘FINALLY’” from local members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies after he founded Willsonville Pride, reflecting the residents’ desire to celebrate the pride they hold in their identities with others.
“The fabulous turn out at the city’s Pride celebration this last weekend shows that Wilsonville is an accepting and welcoming place to call home with an exceptionally brave, joyful and creative queer community,” Wallace said. “We saw support from both sides of the political spectrum, but most importantly, we saw Wilsonville’s LBGTQ+ community, out and proud, celebrating, bolstered by a renewed sense of community. I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
