Alumnus’ work with NYC Pride, WorldPride is all about inspiring, empowering
Chris Frederick, BA ’05, is pictured with celebrities Whoopi Goldberg and Cher during a 2013 NYC Pride event.
Now a seasoned New Yorker, Chris Frederick, BA ’05, remembers one of his earliest visits to the Big Apple — a visit and an experience that comes full circle for him every year for the past 10 years.
A 17-year-old eager to start his college experience at Ohio University, Frederick was on a journey of personal growth, having just publicly come out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, when he visited New York City with his mother in the summer of 2001.
“While we were visiting NYC, we stumbled upon the pride march, just coincidentally,” Frederick said. “It was a monumental moment in my life. Being a kid from Ohio and just stumbling upon the largest pride event in the world and having this sense of relief, this sense of belonging, and having this connection to people I never realized even existed — it was so incredibly inspiring, empowering, and it changed me forever.”
Today, Frederick is responsible for facilitating that same impactful experience for millions of people each year. Since 2009, he has served as executive director of Heritage of Pride Inc. — also called NYC Pride — which is a non-profit organization that works toward an equal future for the LGBTQ+ community and produces events that celebrate the community’s diversity, most notably the annual NYC Pride celebration.
It was a scene like this from a recent NYC Pride march that brought Chris Frederick a sense of relief, a sense of belonging and a connection to others when he visited New York City in 2001 and stumbled upon a pride march.
“At the end of the day, pride is about creating a space to commemorate the movement,” Frederick said. “It’s about honoring how far we’ve come, how much further we have to go as a community, and creating these experiences that affect millions of people.”
His role at NYC Pride requires Frederick to exercise confidence and leadership skills, which he said he first developed during his time in Athens.
“I was very active in Student Senate at Ohio University,” said Frederick, who served as a student leader for three years and majored in political science. “Student Senate was where I knew I wanted to be a leader on a large level, and I think Student Senate shaped me as a future leader and who I am today. Working with various constituents, working with government officials, working with University officials — I think it’s interesting how it paired so nicely with what I’m doing today.”
As a Bobcat undergraduate, Frederick was also a resident assistant on OHIO’s South and West Greens. “I loved that experience as well,” he said, noting that the role prompted him to serve as director of Student Senate’s Residence Life Commission.
Though he intended to enroll in law school, Frederick realized his post-graduation life was destined to take a different direction. With no job, a single suitcase and a few dollars in his bank account, Frederick left Ohio, his lifelong home, for his dream home in New York City where he had an internship the summer before his senior year.
“I think OU in a way allowed me to be prepared by working with all different types of people, and I think that helped set the stage for having the skills to move to New York shortly after graduation,” he said.
He quickly landed an internship at Out magazine and after about a month was hired as a sales and marketing assistant at the LGBTQ publication, later working on events for the magazine and associated brands.
When he joined the team at NYC Pride in 2009, the organization was producing about five events each year – all held during the last week in June. Today, NYC Pride hosts more than 25 events, celebrated by an estimated 2-2.5 million, held during the last two weeks in June.
“It’s a really amazing opportunity, and I’ve always really loved my job,” Frederick said, noting that the bulk of his duties at NYC Pride is to fundraise for the organization as well as manage staff and event logistics. “It’s rare that you get to create these sorts of events that affect millions of people.”
This year, NYC Pride will dramatically extend its reach, hosting the first WorldPride to be held in the United States.
“WorldPride is like the Olympics of pride that happens every other year,” Frederick said. “It’s been in cities like Rome, London, Madrid and Toronto.”
The 2019 WorldPride events are drawing together the NYC Pride celebration and the global pride celebration and coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising that took place in Greenwich Village and is widely considered to be the start of the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement in the United States. According to Frederick, WorldPride, scheduled for June 17-30, is expected to attract around 4.5 million people from around the world.
Frederick and his NYC Pride colleagues have been busy planning, organizing and fundraising for WorldPride.
“Sometimes it’s hard because you get so stressed out. There’s a million things happening and a million people calling you needing things,” Frederick said. “But every year I have this ritual of going to the start of the (pride) march and looking up Fifth Avenue and seeing the sea of people and the rainbows. And I think about how there’s probably dozens of kids on the sidelines, like I was, having their first pride experience, and that forever changing them as a person.”