Just this past summer, my kids and I went to West Hollywood (or “WeHo”) for Pride.

Now, before I go further – please know that we spent MONTHS ramping up for this event. My oldest began rhinestoning almost everything in his closet. My youngest worked on two looks a day for every day we were going to be there. This was a big deal, and both couldn’t wait to get to the intersection of Santa Monica and North San Vicente as fast as they could.

But this story in particular is about my youngest. They were eighteen, queer, neurodivergent, ridiculously excited to be there … and, within about thirty minutes, they noped the fuck out. The environment was too loud. Too crowded. Basically, there was wayyyy too much coming at their nervous system all at once. And there is something really strange about watching your queer kid leave Pride because the place celebrating people like them is an environment their brain couldn’t comfortably stay with.

What made it even more striking was that this was not their first Pride. We had been going to Sacramento Pride for years. That was part of what Pride meant to them. They genuinely thought all Pride spaces would feel like Sacramento. And I remember realizing that what we were dealing with had nothing to do with whether they wanted queer community. They absolutely did. Their nervous system had simply reached capacity.

Once your kid’s nervous system has left the building, arguing with it is not going to bring it back. Parents do this sometimes because we are still thinking about the logistics. “We drove all this way.” “We spent so much money!” “We just got here.” “The parade hasn’t even started.” “Can you give it another twenty minutes?” Meanwhile, their nervous system has already filed its resignation letter.

So I stayed, but they left. With full permission to take a Lyft home on my credit card and order DoorDash when they got back to the rental and decompress, because the disappointment was about to eat them alive. My kid did not need me standing there explaining why Pride was supposed to be fun. They needed me to believe them when they said they were done.

But, there was another part of that day that stayed with me. My kid was eighteen. And eighteen is a weird age in queer community spaces. You’re legally an adult, so you can start aging out of programs designed for LGBTQ youth, but you are still too young for bars and a lot of the nightlife where queer adults have historically found community.

Now, I lovingly refer to them as “baby queers” or “baby gays,” but I mean this seriously: Where are they supposed to go? Where does an eighteen-, nineteen-, or twenty-year-old go if they want queer community, they are too old for the kids’ space, too young for the bar, and the giant outdoor celebration is a sensory obstacle course? Because that is one hell of a gap. And if that young person is also autistic, ADHD, disabled, socially anxious, or simply somebody whose nervous system cannot tolerate hours of amplified music and dense crowds, their options can get even smaller.

We spend a lot of time telling young queer people to go find their community. Okay … Where? I mean that as an actual question. Where can a newly independent queer eighteen-year-old walk in, meet people, hang out, regulate if they need to, and stay for a while without buying a cocktail or surviving a wall of speakers? That question has stayed with me.

So I started paying closer attention to what other Pride organizations were doing, and I found something encouraging. Some of them have already built sensory access into their Pride events, not treating it like an afterthought.

Cincinnati Pride has created a Sensory Refresh Zone away from the busiest parts of the event, where people can step out of the crowd, cool down, regulate, and take a break. Ferndale Pride has offered a “Places to Chill” area with things like earplugs, fidgets, and trained volunteers. North Jersey Pride has gone even further with a Neuroqueer Pride area that separates quiet and party zones and uses communication badges so people can indicate how much social interaction they want.

Apparently Cincinnati, Ferndale, North Jersey, and Sacramento have figured something out that WeHo and Los Angeles Pride organizers could learn from, which is not a sentence I expected to say out loud in 2026. But here we are. And I want to be really clear about why this matters: Neurodivergent people are NOT fragile.

We understand that a person who uses a wheelchair is not fragile because they need a ramp or an accessible route. The environment needs to make mobility possible. Sensory access works the same way. Ear protection. A quiet place to regulate. Clear maps. Lower-stimulation areas. Knowing where the exits are. Being able to step away and come back. Those things make participation possible. And neurodivergent people are not all going to want the same thing.

Some people LOVE the music, the crowds, the lights, the costumes, the movement, the entire glorious sensory explosion of Pride. Some people want all of that for an hour and then need somewhere quieter for twenty minutes. Some people need a completely different way into the experience. That is why accessibility matters.

Pride does not need to become quiet. Pride needs enough room for more than one kind of nervous system. And for parents, there is a very practical lesson in all of this. If your kid tells you Pride is too much, believe them. You can leave. You can look at the map ahead of time next year. You can identify quieter spaces. You can bring headphones. You can make an exit plan before you ever arrive. And most importantly, your child should know that saying, “I need to go,” will not turn into an argument about how much money you spent, how long you drove, or how badly everybody wanted this day to work.

Pride is supposed to be about belonging. Your kid should not have to hurt themselves to prove they belong there. And I think this applies to the communities we build far beyond Pride. When we say, “Everyone is welcome,” we should be willing to ask whether people can actually access the welcome we are offering. A rainbow flag does not lower the volume. Good intentions do not create a quiet space. And telling somebody to “find their community” only works if we have actually built places where they can find it.

My kid should never have been standing in front of GYM Bar WeHo with only two apparent choices: overwhelm yourself or go home. Neither should anybody else’s. Queer neurodivergent people already belong at Pride. Our job is to make more ways for them to stay.

So if you’re involved with WeHo Pride or LA Pride and you’re thinking about accessibility for next year, please reach out to me. I would genuinely love to be part of that conversation. And I’m willing to bet my youngest would have some thoughts too. Because the people who need better access should probably get a say in what better access looks like.

That’s all for now. For more, please visit rainbowrootsmedia.com. And don’t forget to take good care of yourself today.