By Lloyd McDonald Photo • By TennesseePhotography.com
If you’ve done anything in Nashville’s LGBTQ+ scene in the past few decades you have probably met Mac Huffington. Shortly after Huffington moved to Nashville, she became affiliated with Nashville PRIDE and began looking for opportunities to serve the community and make it more inclusive. She is at virtually every LGBTQ+ event in the city. You can find her working and serving with Nashville PRIDE and through her business MAC Productions promoting the city’s drag kings and queens and ensuring that pageants and shows are top-notch and are done in the most fun and professional way possible.
While working with PRIDE, Huffington has served in various capacities and has undertaken growing responsibilities. She has grown as a person with each new challenge. She became the Nashville PRIDE board president in 2021 and will be finishing out her term this year. Although Huffington is very proud of the things she has accomplished during this term — accomplishments that are as much a part of her personality as they are values that any organization would be proud to call their own — her tone while discussing these accomplishments was one of confidence and sincere humility.
This is the same way she approaches her business and everything else she faces in life. She takes the challenges and uses them as opportunities to grow herself and PRIDE’s reach. During this time as president, she achieved several notable accomplishments with PRIDE. Huffington has led the most diverse PRIDE board in Nashville’s history and broke attendance records for Nashville’s PRIDE festival in both years of her tenure.
She has collaborated with other organizations that share PRIDE’s mission of service to support regional advocacy and outreach efforts while supporting and coordinating with other local PRIDE festivals and The Tennessee Equality Project. And looking to the future, she is ensuring that this year’s Nashville PRIDE Festival is on track to surpass last year’s attendance records and has established sustainable long-term strategic plans for the Nashville PRIDE Board to advance the LGBTQIA+ community in Nashville.
What does Huffington want her legacy as PRIDE president to be? Huffington said, “I want my legacy as president to be what everyone already knows me for — being a loving and inclusive person who brought greater stability to the organization and created growth through even greater diversity. You never know where your next good idea will come from, and, by ensuring that more people and more diversity are involved in Nashville PRIDE, you are guaranteed more people are heard.” She continued by emphatically stating, “And that [inclusivity] is where your best ideas are going to come from. I want everyone to know that I have worked to put my money where my mouth is here — ensuring that my legacy with this presidency has been to create the most diverse and inclusive [PRIDE] in Nashville PRIDE history.”
Given Tennessee’s current political climate and the discriminatory laws that have been passed, especially with drag performances, we inevitably had to discuss these attacks and what they mean for the community and Nashville PRIDE. Huffington was optimistic that things will eventually change for the better, and with those changes, the LGBTQ+ community will eventually get our rights restored as more people become outraged by what has happened and scream “Enough is enough.”
She said, “We all know that [the restrictions/ban on drag] this is only one of several laws that have negatively affected the LGBTQIA+ community, and Tennesseans need to oppose all of these laws.” Upon asking Huffington how people can get involved and expedite the change that most wish to see, she said. “If you’re not registered to vote, REGISTER YESTERDAY! Then go show up and vote; don’t wait for someone else to take the lead to bring the change! Nashville PRIDE will continue to advocate for change and challenge these laws while ensuring everything they organize is done peacefully. PRIDE festivals in Tennessee will continue to have drag shows. Drag is an essential part of PRIDE — there’s simply no way to avoid it, and we at Nashville PRIDE will ensure all of our shows and all entertainers operate within the confines of the law as it is written; however, don’t think for a minute that our peaceful compliance means that we have admitted defeat or that it will be done quietly. We are going to continue to be a loud, very outspoken voice, and we will be heard.”
As for Huffington’s personal plans after her term as president is over, she said, “I’m going to continue to be involved; it’s what I do. I’m going to continue promoting drag through MAC Productions ensuring that drag and Male/Female Impersonation is portrayed in a positive light and done so inclusively. I’m also going to continue working with and supporting the LGBTQIA+ organizations that work to make a difference in protecting all of our rights and ensure that we continue moving closer to equality for all people. I love what I do. I love my organization. I love people, and I love finding new opportunities to serve them, and that isn’t going to change — regardless of the titles I hold.”
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