The festival takes place in June to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies.

This event commemorates the 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood, which is generally considered to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.

Owing partially to concerns over increasing congestion over the years in the nearby neighborhoods, and to accommodate a larger festival (held in the daytime before the parade itself), the 2015 parade was moved to downtown Houston.

[4] The Houston Pride parade was expected to take place in the fall for the first time in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic;[5] however, due to the increasing cases in Houston the 2020 Pride Parade was replaced with a virtual rally.

Entries in the parade are eligible for awards in categories with cultural references significant to LGBT history as well as a judges pick and categories with more localized focus: Imran Yousef (Pulse Survivor) [8]