Cultivating community: Newport Pride founders open city’s first Pride Center

Newport Pride, which officially became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization last year, kicks off this weekend’s Pride celebration with a cruise on Narragansett Bay featuring well known drag performers, The Trailer Park Girls. Events throughout the weekend include Afterdark, an evening of music and dancing, a downtown festival and marketplace, and the now-annual Pride Ride.

It’s a big month for the Newport Pride co-founders, and not because it’s national Pride Month. Just weeks ago, O’Connor and Cano Restrepo opened the doors of the new Pride Center at 42 Spring St., offering resources for the LGBTQ+ community and allies. The center also functions as a gathering space for workshops, events, programming, discussion groups, and more. O’Connor and Cano Restrepo are eager to let the community steer the center’s role.

“Even in the two weeks we’ve been open, there’s just been so many heartwarming, interesting stories and interactions with people who have come in for various reasons, and it just reinforces the importance of having this space,” O’Connor said.

Celebratory events hosted by Newport Pride are important, the two agree, but the center is poised to be a visible, welcoming, deeply-rooted community pillar serving multiple needs and multiple GLBT+ populations, including youth, senior citizens, the military community, and the area’s sizable Spanish-speaking population.

“It’s got to start with cultivating the community at its core, rather than just entertainment. Entertainment will come, and it’s already happening, but a place where a mom can come and talk to us about their trans kid, or a trans kid who maybe is not feeling welcome out there can find a group here,” said Cano Restrepo, Newport Pride’s executive director. “So I feel that there is no end goal of this place. I want it to be built by the community.”

The couple said up until now, local organizations and churches have been generous in providing space for gatherings, but Cano Restrepo points out that for some, a church may be intimidating. A queer-visible physical location dedicated to the needs of the LGBTQ+ community is a game changer, he said.

For example, an LGBTQ+ youth peer group offered by Newport’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and known as L.E.A.D. — for Love, Equity, Acceptance, and Dreams — had been meeting at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church during the center’s extensive building renovation. Although the community center remains fully operational, construction presents challenges. “Newport Pride really generously offered up their space to have us hold the group there,” said Melanie Saunders, the community programs manager at the center.

Saunders said the peer group would meet weekly at the Pride Center going forward, at least until construction is complete. Their debut event, a Teen Pride Party, was held last week. “We promoted it to the community, so it wasn’t only the kids who attend L.E.A.D., but also kids who go to the other GSAs.” Shorthand for for Gay-Straight Alliance or Gender-Sexuality Alliance, GSAs are student-run organizations that unite LGBTQ+ and allied youth. The timing of the Pride Center’s opening, said Saunders, is particularly ideal. “For a lot of kids, the GSAs stop at the end of the school year, but we just continue through the summertime.” And Cano Restrepo being a native Spanish speaker has been key, Saunders said. “He’s been a really great go-between between the kids and the families who really don’t know what to do when their child comes out because culturally, they might not be 100 percent there yet. He’s been a wonderful advocate.”

For many in Newport County and beyond, O’Connor and Cano Restrepo have been the faces of the local LGBTQ+ community for years. The couple moved to Newport in 2017 and bought Newport Out, which promotes the city as a travel destination to the LGBTQ+ community. O’Connor, a Rhode Island native, is Newport Out’s managing director, and Cano Restrepo, originally from Medellín, Colombia, is creative director of the tourism website, which features queer-friendly lodging options, events, a blog and recommended restaurants, cafes, food trucks, vineyards, and breweries, plus community resources for all gender diverse identities. O’Connor is also executive director of Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation and Fort Hamilton Trust.

Discover Newport, the region’s destination marketing organization, has worked with O’Connor and Cano Restrepo to grow Newport Out.

Kathryn Farrington, the vice president of marketing at Discover Newport, describes Newport Out as the “LGBTQ arm” of the organization, although they are separate entities. Discover Newport’s financial support for Newport Out includes a year-round advertising campaign, marketing of Pride events, and working in partnership with state tourism officials to develop off-season LGBTQ+ events to drive tourism.

“Everybody has Pride Week and everybody has events, but nothing has really carried throughout the year, and that’d be huge [for tourism],” said Farrington. Discover Newport also sends O’Connor and Cano Restrepo to the annual International LGBTQ+ Travel Association convention. “And then they come back and educate our industry,” Farrington said.

Farrington has had a front row seat to Newport Out’s expanding footprint. “I have seen the growth and it’s been phenomenal when you look at where they were to the present day,” she said. The Pride Center, Farrington said, “that’s big for this area. …They really methodically thought this out.”

Reggie Onorati moved to Newport three years ago and began volunteering with Newport Pride and making connections. But, the New Jersey native found that, like many places in these times, the city isn’t universally welcoming to LGBTQ people. “The most homophobic things in my life have actually happened to me in Newport, which is so shocking,” said Onorati. “There’s so much acceptance, and then there’s also this really nasty part of it, to be honest.” The experiences prompted him to consider relocating to Provincetown, Mass. “I was going to move to P-town, and right in that moment, Sean and Dani and I were getting closer as friends, and I was coming closer with all these queer and gay people in Newport,” Onorati said. “I realized that the community I have here is just so special.” Over the past three years, Onorati said the people who started as new friends have become “lifelong parts of my queer circle.”

“So yeah, I definitely would not be in Newport without the presence of Newport Out or Newport Pride,” said Onorati, who has served on Newport Pride’s board of directors since January 2022. Part of their work, he said, is not only about who they are reaching, but who they’re not reaching. “You look around at these events and you see all different types of people, but we’re also taking note of what groups of communities are not coming, and how can we cater our events to make it something that they’re interested in or that they feel safe coming to?”

Nationwide, nearly 500 bills targeting LGBTQ rights have been introduced at the state level so far this year, according to the ACLU, a fact not lost on Cano Restrepo and O’Connor. When asked about challenges the Pride Center might face, Cano Restrepo said funding, but also, security. “I feel like a target just by putting this flag up,” he said. “I’ve seen in other states, people burning those flags. Even though Newport is open and progressive, hate is still out there,” he said. Still, the two are often reminded of their mission, which drives them forward.

Newport Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong underscored the importance of the location and visibility of the Pride Center downtown, which he said are paramount. “Having a physical location right in the heart of our city ensures that we have a place that is constantly helping us learn more about that community and how to be more inclusive and welcoming,” he said.

Though he describes Newport as a community that celebrates equality, calling it one of the city’s “founding values,” the mayor acknowledges Newport does not exist in a vacuum. “Hate lurks everywhere in this world. It’s not the majority of people, and it’s certainly not even a large amount of people, but it is out there and very important that we give it no quarter in any of our communities.”