Gay Day, aka "Day of Magic
and Night of Pleasure"

"Gay Day", is more officially known as "Day of Magic and Night of Pleasure". It is not hosted by, nor is it encouraged (nor discouraged) by the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney World is a fantastic vacation destination and in the United States of America, corporations are not permitted to discriminate against anyone for race, creed, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. The Walt Disney Company can not stop "Gay Day" from happening.

The reason why I include this information, though, is to inform you of the fact that this event is held annually. It is advertised by the gay community and is well attended. If you are uncomfortable with the homosexual lifestyle, and/or would like to shield your children from behavior with which you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar, you might choose to schedule your trip to WDW for some time other than Early June.

A MousePlanet reader, Tony, sent me this note:

"Brian, This year (Editor's Note: 2002) will be my 4th attendance of Gay Day events at Disneyworld. It takes place the first weekend of June, and has for over 10 years. I still am amazed by the people who never seem to know about the events going on. Most, thankfully, are able to handle it well and seem to enjoy themselves with the many colorful personalities. There are, however, those that are obviously not ready to deal with the Gay and Lesbian community on such a large scale (100,000). So, I am writing you to pass on the word that Orlando becomes quite busy with the Gay and Lesbian community the first bit of June (May 29 - June 4). There are assigned 'days' for us to visit certain theme parks (Thursday/AK, Friday/MGM, Saturday/MK, Sunday/Epcot). Maybe planning opposite those days at certain parks will still let your readers who've spent thousands of dollars to be there have a more 'uninterrupted' vacation. Just a word of advice."

Kenny Cottrell, a fellow AOL - R.A.D.P. user and WDW aficionado, posted his eyewitness account (back a couple of years ago) regarding the "Gay Day" event that is held at WDW on the first weekend after Memorial Day each year. Ken Posted this information on the "rec.arts.disney.parks" Usenet newsgroup.

Finally, the Gay community encourages participants in Gay Day to wear a red shirt...or one of the "official" gay day shirts. That tidbit of information is useful to fully understand Ken's comments.

Here is Ken's post, reprinted here in total with Ken's permission:

"This year, the *Gay Day* at WDW brought the same complaints as last year. No signs were posted to warn guests that it was happening - and some got mad at WDW for not being warned. Kudos go to the Guest Relations CM's who had to deal with the upset guest all day long. Guest Relations had to deal with explaining why guests weren't warned ahead of time:

"CM: "Ma'am, WDW doesn't sponsor the event - it is just like a group of guests wanting to visit on Thanksgiving or any other day of the year."

"Guest: "But they have shirts printed up."

"CM: "We didn't print the shirts. They had them printed themselves. We can't control what others get printed on their shirts."

"People were getting free shirts if they were wearing red shirts and objected to the concept of wearing red. I saw a family get free shirts at about 10:30 pm - 1.5 hours left for the park to remain open, and they still got shirts. People were requesting refunds - saw this happen at both EC and MK. No CM wore red or pink. [You know you have gone to many times when you see a CM were a different color shirt and you know that that CM is out of costume.] I haven't seen so many *suits* on duty at any one time. There were also extra Security Hosts on duty and extra Guest Relations Hosts on duty.

" It definitely wasn't a *usual day in the park*. It also didn't seem as *outrageous* as I was expecting. Sure, there were things that weren't common for WDW, but it wasn't like there was anything you wouldn't see in big cities around the US. After a while I noticed that everything I had seen, I had seen for both homosexual couples and heterosexual couples that day in the MK.

"Now the T-shirts on the other hand - you wouldn't believe the amount of different t-shirts that different people had. There were about 3 or 4 different styles from different groups that were prominent. Some people wore last year's or the year before that's shirt. And a lot of people just wore red.

"And then there were the people who wore red because that is what color shirt/blouse they chose to were on that day. Either they didn't mind wearing it because *that is what they wore that day* or they were totally clueless. Their definitely were more people who tolerated it (the day as a whole) otherwise GR would have really had their hands full - I probably didn't get to see the worst part of the day, because I was there only for the late afternoon/park closing time frame. But the sea of red was at all three parks: MK, EC, & ST.

"So as a fair warning to folks: if this bothers you at all DO NOT PLAN a vacation at WDW to include the first Saturday in June / Saturday after Memorial Day. You will see t-shirts at all three parks, not just the Magic Kingdom. Also be fair warned that WDW can not legally tell you that this might happen nor can they legally keep it from happening.

"Now for me, it just made my head spin. I am someone who takes in all this information about my surroundings. And this day had lots of information for me. I saw red shirts reacting to others; I saw people react to red shirts; I saw people trying to figure out what was going on; I saw red shirts reacting to red shirts; I saw lots and lots of different T-shirts (and some of them really were funny.) Definitely too much input for one day."