Huge annual “Pride” event in Oklahoma town is stopped after local citizen pressure.

Sponsorship by town businesses plummeted. Volunteers backed off.

“Pride” board members resigned after disagreement over keeping Drag Queens.

August 6, 2025

LGBT activists hand dollar bills to Drag Queen at "Pride" event in public park in Bartlesville, OK. [All photos by Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise except where noted.]

Over the last decade, a major strategy of the LGBT movement has been to hold prominent public “Pride” events in predominantly Christian towns in “red” states. Oklahoma has been a big target. The purpose is to desensitize the citizens and to normalize bizarre LGBT behaviors. These events usually include garish Drag Queens performing before young children. They are held in public parks or similar open venues. LGBT activists from afar usually show up to make a larger crowd.

Drag Queen hugs small child during the Pride event.

The event organizers are skilled at getting funding from leftist local businesses and “woke” corporations. And they find volunteers among local liberals and LGBT activists.

Large annual public “Pride” event comes to conservative Oklahoma town

Bartlesville is a conservative town in northeast Oklahoma (population 38,000). The LGBT movement got a foothold there in 2018 and again in 2019, holding an annual “Pride picnic” in a park.

But in 2022 it became a very large event in a public park, featuring outrageous Drag Queens cavorting among young children.

Drag Queen "performing" among the crowd during the 2022 Pride event.

It was quite offensive to the community, and some local conservatives came and protested.

Local citizens protesting across the street from the 2022 Pride event.

The Drag Queen spectacle in 2022 caused a lot of outrage – including debate in the Bartlesville City Council. To calm people down, in 2023 the Bartlesville Pride organizing group kept their Drag Queens from publicly “performing” at the Pride event, though they were allowed to attend in costume.

But in 2024, the Drag Queens were back as performers. The Pride group used a new strategy. They persuaded the City Council that “Drag performance” is “art” – not perverted behavior – and that their “art” was being physically threatened by bigoted citizens.

Garish Drag Queens were back "performing" in 2024. [Photo: Bartlesville Equality]

Thus, the City Council assigned police as “security” for the event (at a cost of $30,000) and would not allow any protesters into the park. Protesters could only gather along the park perimeter.

Citizens reach out to MassResistance from Bartlesville

As we recently reported, at the beginning of March 2025, we were contacted by a parent in Bartlesville. He wanted help pushing back against this year’s annual “Pride” event scheduled for September 19, which would again target children. He said that many people were upset that the City Council was supplying police for security, and it was being funded by local businesses. 

We spoke with him about getting a team together. Word spread and the new Oklahoma MassResistance chapter attracted a sizeable group of citizens, both in Bartlesville and across the state.

Shutting it down in 2025

The Oklahoma MassResistance strategy this year was to start right away.

It included a campaign of education – of how the “Pride” event, and especially the hideous Drag Queens – men cavorting suggestively in garish women’s clothes – promote sexual and emotional dysfunction, plus a range of other unhealthy behaviors to vulnerable young children and the community in general.

That message was repeatedly presented to funders of the event, including a bank, insurance broker, credit union, a dentist’s office, a large national corporation, and others.

On July 31, the Bartlesville Equality organization (which puts on the annual event) posted a lengthy Facebook post announcing that the September 2025 Pride event would not take place. They said they were “postponing” the event, but no date was given. All the local media understood that as a cancellation.

Their “reasons” for cancelling the event

LGBT activists are used to getting their way wherever they go and are expert at bullying everyone. But when faced with real community pushback in Bartlesville, they collapsed.

Bartlesville Equality said they “faced a challenging financial climate” and were able to raise only a third of the money needed to put the event on.

They also blamed their cancellation on a “heightened climate of hostility” in the local community and claimed that they “cannot guarantee the safety” of the participants. (This “safety” concern is a common LGBT talking point when met with conservative protest. But in our experience, it’s the LGBT activists who are likely to become violent in these situations, not regular citizens.)

Third, they blamed it on a lack of volunteers – including members of their Board of Directors who had recently resigned. Apparently, their full Board had again voted to appease the community by not allowing Drag Queens to be featured performers at this year’s event. Several of their Board members then resigned in protest of that decision!

Trying to placate their angry ex-Board members, they included this paragraph in their Facebook post. If anything, it further reveals their bizarre, sexually dysfunctional state of mind:

(Since the cancellation announcement, one other LGBT group announced it was considering holding its own - very diminished - "Pride" event indoors, outside of town, for adults only. A clear victory!)

Final thoughts

The LGBT movement, like other radical leftist movements, is very intimidating if you allow it to be – and most conservatives unfortunately play into their hands. But in fact, it’s a house of cards and can be easily collapsed.