The Southlake City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to deny a permit to an LGBTQ+ Pride festival.
Pride Kel-So, which would have been held Oct. 3 for the second time this year at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, is co-organized by April Dreyson. She founded the event with her wife, Shaina.
Dreyson told KERA she's still shocked after the vote. She didn't expect the event's permit to be denied after spending months going through the proper channels to secure it.
"I'm definitely settling into a real sadness for the LGBTQ+ community that is very alive and well within Southlake and Keller," Dreyson said.
The council did not ask Dreyson questions, nor did they explain the reasoning behind their vote. The city's planning and zoning commission recommended approving the permit during a meeting in August.
Southlake Mayor Shawn McCaskill and city council members did not immediately respond to KERA's requests for comment.
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Rev. Ellen Singer told the council that the church was excited to host the event, given its history of opening its doors to a variety of community groups, including scouts, a soccer club and Alcoholics Anonymous.
Singer told KERA that the church's attitude is one of welcoming without exceptions, even when members disagree on individual issues.
"My core hope is that we can all recognize the dignity and belovedness of one another as we tackle this issue and this event," she said.
"My prayer is that this event can happen in some form someday, a safe gathering place for members of the community where we can celebrate the diversity of God's creation," Singer added.
Dreyson highlighted the live music and resource-focused vendors as the main drivers of the festival. She said these vendors encompass general and mental health, insurance and financial planning and church groups.
"A big part of Pride Kel-So for my wife and I is allowing resources that people wouldn't otherwise know existed to be put in front of the Keller Southlake community," she said.
Dreyson and her wife both grew up in Keller and didn't fully come out until they started their event planning business three years ago.
"As people married to each other, [we] realized that the best way to walk into rooms and be genuine was to walk in as wives," she said.
The couple was "very well-received" in the area and welcomed into the local business network, which Dreyson pointed to as a big part of what allowed them to launch Pride Kel-So.
"There's been a lot of back and forth, even in the last year and a half, of my feelings towards the area, because there has been so much support for us as a couple," she recalled. "But that doesn't necessarily extend to all LGBTQ+ people in the area."
Dreyson said she was surprised to learn how many locals identify as LGBTQ+. She struggles with how to feel about seeing an event that means so much to the community rejected by elected officials.
Dreyson estimates just under 1,600 people attended last year's Pride Kel-So event. She put an estimated 2,500 attendees down in the 2026 permit application to account for potential growth.
In response to a public comment opposing the event, Dreyson said the goal of continuing to organize it isn't to prove a point.
"While not everybody can understand what difference it makes because it doesn't directly impact them in that positive way, there are plenty of people in the area that it does make a positive impact on," she said. "That is why we continue to do this."
Dreyson said Pride Kel-So is still on, just not the way it was originally planned. Details are being ironed out.
"We're finalizing those decisions over the next 24 hours," she said. "Pride will happen."
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