June is Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community and the ongoing fight for equality. Pride is an unrepentant rejection of shame and stigma and a resounding affirmation of LGBTQ+ rights—including the right to joy.
While Pride Month is often celebrated with colorful parades and lively festivals that draw thousands of revelers across Pennsylvania each year, there are many other ways to participate and show your support.
We’ve rounded up some of the biggest parades and events of Pride 2026, along with a handful of other ways to celebrate, from supporting LGBTQ+-owned businesses and advocacy groups to learning about LGBTQ+ history in the commonwealth. We hope these ideas inspire you to continue celebrating Pride beyond June.
Attend a parade or festival
Pride parades and festivals are classic, family-friendly celebrations of the LGBTQ+ community held all across Pennsylvania, in big cities and small towns alike.
Some of the biggest parades and festivals include those in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Central Pennsylvania—though there are also dozens of smaller events statewide, so be sure to check your local event listings.
Philadelphia’s Pride is one of the largest in the country, a celebration complete with a Pride March of thousands and a massive festival along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The revelry takes place Sunday, June 7.
Pittsburgh Pride hosts a multiday festival in Allegheny Commons Park on the city’s North Side on the weekend of June 6 and 7, with the march and parade stepping off on Sunday, June 7.
In Harrisburg, the Pride Festival of Central PA has been bringing together the region’s LGBTQ+ community and allies for more than 30 years. In 2026, the parade and festival will occur on Saturday, July 25, extending the celebration through the summer.
Support LGBTQ+-owned businesses
One of the best ways to support the LGBTQ+ community is by putting dollars directly in the pockets of LGBTQ+-owned businesses, especially those that operate welcoming queer spaces.
In Pittsburgh, the Soft Spot is a new sapphic cafe in Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood that serves coffee and hosts events like book clubs and mixers for the queer community and allies, but especially those who identify as sapphic.
In Philadelphia, Giovanni’s Room is a historic LGBTQ+ bookstore operated by Philly AIDS Thrift. Now known as Philadelphia AIDS Thrift at Giovanni’s Room, it’s the country’s oldest queer bookstore, and regularly hosts readings, book clubs, author talks, and more. You might even pick up a book by an LGBTQ+ author!
You can also support LGBTQ-owned businesses while traveling. Book a weekend away at Gettysburg’s welcoming Battlefield Bed & Breakfast, a historic, lesbian-owned B&B perfect for Civil War history lovers—and breakfast aficionados.
Celebrate at LGBTQ+ bars
Gay bars are central to LGBTQ+ history: For decades, they served as some of the only safe spaces for community members to meet and be themselves. Today, these bars and other nightlife establishments are part of a wider landscape of inclusive institutions, but they still continue to serve as essential, visible gathering places.
LGBTQ+ bars and clubs host drag performances, dance parties, themed nights, and other community events throughout the year, but are especially busy during Pride Month. For example, Blue Moon, which calls itself the “friendliest gay bar in Pittsburgh,” is hosting its “Cattybaret” cabaret show during Lawrenceville Pride on Sunday, June 14. A $5 cover includes dinner!
Philadelphia’s oldest gay bar, among many, Tavern on Camac, is home to three floors appealing to different tastes: The first floor is the restaurant, the second a piano bar, and the third a club.
You can also find LGBTQ+ bars in smaller cities throughout Pennsylvania. For instance, State College has Chumley’s, Harrisburg is home to Brownstone Lounge, and Wilkes-Barre boasts Heat Bar & Nightclub. In Erie, the Zone Dance Club, the city’s largest queer bar, will host a drag show and an after-party featuring a free buffet over the weekend of Erie’s Pride on the Bay, which takes place Saturday, June 27.
Enjoy LGBTQ+ arts and culture
This Pride Month, take in art created by members of the LGBTQ+ community, who use different media to challenge mainstream conventions, especially around gender, sex, and love.
Museums and cultural spaces throughout Pennsylvania are hosting exhibits of queer art in June, while others offer opportunities to engage with LGBTQ+ arts and culture year-round.
Each month in Pittsburgh, the Andy Warhol Museum hosts Dandy Andy, a tour of the museum that explores the pop artist’s identity as a gay man and how it influenced his work. Warhol included themes of sexuality in his art but rarely discussed his own identity in the socially conservative atmosphere of the 50s and 60s. The Warhol is hosting two Dandy Andy events in June 2026, one on Saturday, June 13, and the other on Saturday, June 27.
In Harrisburg, the Pride Festival of Central PA is hosting the inaugural Susquehanna LGBTQ Film Festival, featuring films that document and examine the LGBTQ+ experience. The festival will take place on June 18, July 21, Aug. 18, and Sept. 11 through 13, 2026.
The Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre is presenting a number of exhibits and events as part of its community exhibition, “Out Loud: LGBTQIA+ Visibility in NEPA.” Between June 12 and Aug. 1, 2026, the gallery will show “Pulse Nightclub: 49 Elegies by John Gutowsky,” which commemorates the 49 people killed at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in 2016.
In Philadelphia, a new arts festival debuting in June is focused entirely on queer art. The Philly Pride Arts Festival will feature visual artists as well as performances of opera, cabaret, chamber music, and theater on select dates between June 12 and 26, 2026.
Learn about LGBTQ+ history in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania was a hub for early LGBTQ+ rights organizing across the state in decades past. Celebrate Pride Month by diving into this history.
Beyond the Bell Tours in Philadelphia takes guests on a walking tour exploring the queer history of the city’s Gayborhood. The tour runs almost daily throughout June and the rest of the year. Also in Philadelphia, the Philly Pride Visitor Center, which opened just this year, is a tourism-focused visitor center that also has exhibits on Philadelphia’s role in the LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The Pittsburgh Queer History Project regularly hosts archival gatherings, lectures, exhibits, film screenings, and other events exploring LGBTQ+ nightlife in the city between 1960 and 1990.
There’s also an extensive history of LGBTQ+ organizing in Central Pennsylvania. The LGBT Center of Central Pennsylvania, together with Dickinson College, hosts a digital museum and archive dedicated to the area’s LGBTQ+ history. The center has also published three self-guided tours to explore queer history in Harrisburg, Lancaster, and York. The tours include dozens of sites important to the LGBTQ+ rights movement, such as iconic gay bars and places where organizers advocated for an end to LGBTQ+ discrimination.
“LGBTQ history doesn’t just happen in big cities,” Tiersa Curry told The Keystone in 2024. As the archives coordinator at the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, Curry worked to document the rich LGBTQ+ history of the Lehigh Valley.
“You can look in your own town,” she said.
Donate your time and money to Pennsylvania LGBTQ+ organizations
One of the best ways to celebrate Pride is to support groups and organizations that advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. While great strides have been made since the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York, this work is by no means finished.
Donate funds
Many nonprofits are reporting reduced funding in recent years, from the federal government as well as local and state governments. And advocacy organizations that aren’t official nonprofits often depend entirely on donations.
You can donate funds to local and state organizations dedicated to protecting the LGBTQ+ community, and help further their work; we’ve mentioned a number of organizations in this article that take donations, such as The LGBT Center of Central Pennsylvania, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, and Prismatic Arts Ensemble (one of the organizers of the Philly Pride Arts Festival).
Volunteer your time
Many of these organizations also need volunteers to keep their work going. The Pittsburgh Queer History Project looks for volunteers interested in archiving or providing help with marketing and events. Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room is a nonprofit bookstore where volunteers assist with events, sort books, and help customers at the store.
Other organizations to support
Other organizations throughout the state that could benefit from your support, whether volunteer or monetary, include the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, Philly Dyke March, the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project, Reel Q Pittsburgh LGBTQ Film Festival, Queer NEPA, and many more than we can list! Is there a group near you that supports the LGBTQ+ community and that you want to contribute to?
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Related: Meet the young woman preserving the history of Lehigh Valley’s LGBTQ+ community in an archive
