Pride Banners Set to Return to Montrose Along Westheimer
A newly approved Pride Banner District restores LGBTQ visibility along lower Westheimer, where Houston's parades ran for decades.
The newly approved Montrose Pride Banner District will restore a symbol of LGBTQ visibility along a stretch of Westheimer once closely associated with Houston’s Pride celebrations.
Pride banners are expected to return to lower Westheimer as part of a new effort to restore LGBTQ visibility in the heart of Montrose.
The recently approved Montrose Pride Banner District extends along Westheimer Avenue from Taft Street to Montrose Boulevard, passing through an area where Houston’s Pride parades were held for decades before moving downtown.
Pride Houston 365 hopes to have the banners installed in connection with the organization’s rescheduled August 15 parade, although the banners will remain in Montrose after the event.
The effort has been led by longtime Houston LGBTQ community organizer Jack Valinski, who was involved with Pride Houston 365 and its predecessor organization from 1982 to 2005. Valinski began as a volunteer and later became the organization’s leader.
During his tenure, the loosely structured Pride organization formally incorporated in 1992. He also played a central role in moving the parade from Sunday afternoon to Saturday evening in 1997.
Valinski says the first Pride banners placed on metal utility poles along lower Westheimer were installed in 1995. A professional vendor handled the installation and removal.
The idea to revive the banners emerged after Valinski and Pride Houston 365 President Kerry-Ann Morrison attended a demonstration at Taft and Westheimer, where Houston’s rainbow crosswalk had previously been located. Morrison supported the idea, and Valinski volunteered to navigate the approval process.
For months, he worked to identify the appropriate contacts at the City of Houston and CenterPoint Energy.
“There really wasn’t a system in place to apply for this,” Valinski says. “Finally, we got CenterPoint to give us a letter of intent.”
Under the current plan, 10 CenterPoint metal utility poles between Taft and Montrose will be fitted with brackets. Two banners will hang from each pole, with one positioned on each side. Each banner will feature a two-sided design.
CenterPoint must still provide final approval before the banners can be installed.
The banners will remain in the district beyond the 2026 parade, although city regulations require temporary banners to be removed after a designated period. Valinski says they could later be reinstalled or replaced with new designs.
“But right now we are just concerned about getting them hung for 2026,” he says.
Former Houston City Councilmember Abbie Kamin had allocated $10,000 from her District C budget for the project. Mayor John Whitmire, however, told Valinski that he preferred the effort be funded through private donations rather than city money.
According to Valinski, Whitmire has pledged to make the first private contribution. A public fundraising page is expected to launch after that donation is made.
For Valinski, the banners represent both a return to an earlier chapter of Houston Pride history and a renewed public statement in a neighborhood long associated with LGBTQ life.
Their return would place Pride imagery back above a stretch of Westheimer where generations of LGBTQ Houstonians gathered, organized, celebrated, and made themselves visible.
