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Thousands of community members of all ages and backgrounds gathered outside City Hall Saturday to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community during Mountain View’s second annual city-sponsored Pride event.
Dubbed “Together in Pride,” the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community was held downtown on June 20. Booths and educational banners on topics including the evolution of the Pride flag and key players in LGBTQ+ history lined the pathway from City Hall to nearby Pioneer Park, where the celebration continued.
“It really is an exciting [event] and it also provides more community building opportunities for our city,” Mayor Emily Ann Ramos told the Voice. “People could come out, they could enjoy all the performances, all the booths and just being outdoors in our public spaces.”
Mountain View resident Cameron Lucas attended Saturday’s celebration and said it was encouraging that the city has continued to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.
“I love seeing Mountain View showing support,” Lucas said. “I hope to see this continue on.”
Lucas was accompanied by fellow Mountain View residents Chris Ekanha and Joel England, along with England’s dog Buddy. Ekanha, England, and Buddy also attended the city’s first official Pride celebration in 2025. England noted that this year’s event seemed more well-attended than last year.
City spokesperson Lenka Wright confirmed that approximately 4,000 people turned out on Saturday, up from roughly 3,000 attendees in 2025.
Saturday’s event draws attendees from across the region
In addition to the booths and vendors at this year’s Pride celebration, the family-friendly event featured performances, a giant inflatable slide, face painting, outdoor games and a number of other activities.
San Jose resident Sarah Stone told the Voice that she hadn’t ever attended an event in Mountain View before, but that this was the ideal Pride outing for her family. Stone and her wife Luisa brought their young son, Evan, to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community.
Evan perused the booths and participated in a number of activities, getting the most excited about the face painting station, where he planned to get a rainbow design on his arm.
“We want to show him, ‘Hey, don’t listen to what anyone else may say,’” Sarah Stone said. “He loves us, and he realizes he has two moms, and it’s normal.”
Mountain View’s Pride celebration continues to expand
This weekend’s event was a far cry from the Mountain View’s initial recognition of Pride month more than a decade ago. In 2014, then-Mayor Chris Clark’s proposal to fly the Pride flag outside City Hall prompted debate and disagreements. Clark, the city’s first openly gay mayor, ended up donating his own flag to fly the first time around.
Now, the city raises its own Pride flag, which flies above City Hall every June, Ramos said.
In her speech to the crowd Saturday, the mayor shared that she’s part of the LGBTQ+ community, identifying as being on the asexuality spectrum.
Ramos told the Voice on Monday that this was the first time she’d talked about her identity publicly, describing asexuality as an often overlooked part of the LGBTQ+ community. Ramos’ decision to share was about being true to herself and “being all that you are in the community.”
“I didn’t really want it to be about me, but at the same time, I wanted people to feel that there’s no one way to be LGBTQ+,” Ramos said. “There are so many variations of it.”
