Pride 2026: An Encyclopedic Look

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community and an Arkansas transplant—my family lives in Missouri, but I’ve lived here for seventeen years now—I get really excited to celebrate Pride Month with the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Of course, we have an overview entry on the LGBTQ+ Movement in Arkansas, highlighting everything that’s happened in the state historically and lately. But did you know that drag shows have a rich history in Arkansas dating back to at least 1918? Or that female impersonation was an art practiced by, among others, world-traveler Harvey Goodwin and local club owner Norman Jones? Or that the first documented LGBTQ+ marriage in Arkansas took place in 1888!?

Naturally, we have an entry on Eureka Springs, sometimes called “the gayest small town in America,” but we also have one on the Gospel of Eureka, a quirky documentary featuring the perhaps surprising coexistence of conservative religion and gay culture in the city. Did you know that Women’s Intentional Communities often overlapped feminism and acceptance for lesbians in communities exclusively by women/for women? Suzanne Pharr was a lesbian who founded the Women’s Project, and the Women’s Library had a largely gay readership.

Sure, we have entries on historic literary foremothers like Octave Thanet and Jeannette Howard Foster. But did you know that Susie Dumond came to the CALS Six Bridges Book Festival in 2025 to sign copies of her book Bed and Breakup, a lesbian romance novel set in Arkansas? We’ve also got an entry on A Grave Opening, another novel set in Arkansas and written for a lesbian readership by author Jeane Harris, now retired but formerly an English professor at Arkansas State University.

As an avid reader and writer, I love spotlighting Arkansas writers, like novelist Peter Gregory McGehee; novelist Daniel Black and his book Don’t Cry for Me, focused on the complex relationship between a father and his gay son; science fiction author Melissa Elaine Scott; Garrard Conley’s memoir-turned-movie Boy Erased; novelist E. Lynn Harris; and speculative-fiction author Diana Rivers.

But we also feature local celebrities like Bryan Borland and husband Seth Pennington, who started Sibling Rivalry Press, and Kai Coggin, local lesbian poet and Hot Springs Poet Laureate. Ed Madden is another gay poet who has written about his childhood in Arkansas.

Obviously, it’s not just about fiction or memoir writers. Herbert Denton Jr. was a renowned African American journalist at the Washington Post who also happened to be a closeted gay man and died due to complications from AIDS.

Queer folks need straight allies who stand up for equal rights, like judge Chris Piazza, who in 2014 overturned a 1997 law banning same-sex marriage; he also struck down the 2004 ban. Cheryl Maples was a prominent Little Rock attorney who fought on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community in part due to the fact that one of her daughters was gay. Maples also worked with Jack Wagoner, another Little Rock attorney who worked to overturn Arkansas’s ban on same-sex marriage. Vic Snyder, a member of Congress, was known for his efforts to overturn anti-gay laws in Arkansas. And Annabelle Imber Tuck, the first woman to be elected justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, wrote the 2002 majority opinion of the decision to remove legal prohibitions against homosexual activity.

You probably remember June 26, 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges determined that same-sex marriage was legal nationwide. But maybe you haven’t read about more local court cases, such as: Gay and Lesbian Students Association v. Gohn (1988); Jegley v. Picado (2002); Wright v. Arkansas (2014); and Pavan v. Smith (2017).

We have entries on people like Ralph Allen Hyman (of Weekend Theater fame), who ran as the first openly gay candidate for the Arkansas General Assembly, and Kathy Lynette Webb, the first openly gay member elected to the Arkansas General Assembly. We also have an entry on Angie Craig, who was the first openly gay mom elected to Congress.

V. L. Cox is an Arkansan artist whose work has confronted racism and homophobia. Musician, model, and actor Beth Ditto is a vocal LGBTQ+ rights proponent and jill-of-all-trades; she wrote a memoir Coal to Diamonds about growing up in Arkansas. We’ve also got an entry on Lucie’s Place, a local nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ young adults experiencing homelessness. And Danielle Bunten Berry was a computer game designer and a trans woman who came out later in life.

María Moroles, who founded and maintains Santuario Arco Iris, is a woman of Mexican and Indigenous American descent, and prefers the pan-Indian term “Two Spirit” to describe a third or non-binary gender identification and sexual orientation that derives from Native American ceremonial roles and culture.

So, in case you were worried we’d only cover Hollywood superstars like George Takei, who was held in Arkansas with his family in the Rohwer Relocation Center during World War II, rest assured that we also have entries on local activists like Robert Loyd, a gay man and U.S. Army veteran from Conway who founded the Conway Pride Parade with his husband John Schenck, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a trans woman of color who was a community organizer active in groundbreaking LGBTQ+ movements since the 1960s.

But here’s the absolute best part: if we’re missing an entry about a special piece of Arkansas LGBTQ+ history or culture, you can get involved by nominating a topic or even writing an entry. The CALS EOA is always open to including more representation.

Happy Pride, y’all!

Jobe is the editorial assistant at the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas and programmer for the CALS Writing Circle.