In 2010 I was selected as one of the two Champions of Pride, and in 2012 I was a speaker at the Stonewall Rally. In both cases it had to do with LGBT military service issues.
Connor Maddocks was a speaker at the 2013 Stonewall Rally, in large part because his participation in trans leadership regarding trans health care in San Diego – currently Connor Maddox runs the Trans Project at San Diego’s LGBT Center. San Diego Pride, in their last donation cycle, donated a five-figure sum to The Center for that project.
This year, the keynote speaker at the rally was Laverne Cox, a trans actress and advocate for the trans community.
San Diego Pride currently has Blue Montana on their board, Connor Maddocks as the festival manager, and Liat Wexler and Will Oliver Williams on their Diversity Task Force.
On top of that, every year since I came out in 2003, I’m aware that San Diego Pride waived fees for a trans contingent in the parade, as well as a transgender festival information booth organized by local trans community members. This year, the T-Spot contingent and booth received some financial assistance for the event. Trans community member Brooke Sullivan was the lead organizer in the now named T-Spot.
Brooke also was part of the Entertainment Department that made sure that on every festival stage there were at least one trans performer or performance group.
I recently interviewed Fernando Lopez Jr., the public affairs director of San Diego Pride. He talked about how Pride has worked behind the scenes to support the trans subcommunity of the LGBT community over the past years, but hasn’t taken public credit for that work.
When I asked for an example of something Pride didn’t publicize but could have, Fernando gave the example of a local radio station that had shown disrespect toward trans people. The station, as a Pride sponsor, had free festival tickets to give away at station promotional events. At one of these promotional events a couple came up to receive free tickets; one was a trans person who was misgendered by the people staffing the give-away location. The trans community member corrected the staffer, but the staffer, loudly enough to be heard by all assembled at the promotional event, said the trans person didn’t look like a member of that person’s identified gender while continuing to misgender the trans person. The couple didn’t receive free festival tickets from that staffer.
The couple contacted Pride about the incident and Pride told the couple it would take care of the problem.
In a meeting that Pride arranged with the owner and key staffers, Fernando reported that during the first five minutes of the meeting, the owner of the station described the station’s side of the story while continuing to misgender the trans person in question. The Pride representative then told the owner and assembled staffers that they were continuing to misgender a member of the trans community and were not therefore supporting the LGBT community. Pride stated that they were prepared to drop them as a sponsor unless the station issued a formal apology to the couple.
The station was initially surprised at how significant this was to Pride; in retrospect it’s clear that the station owner and staff thought San Diego Pride weekend was a gay and lesbian Pride weekend. However, they learned that San Diego Pride is LGBT Pride. By the end of the meeting the station’s owner and staff understood the issue and what was at stake for them. The station wanted to be a sponsor, so Pride held two training sessions with the staff of the station on trans people, issues and etiquette. Also the couple received a formal apology from the station owner, as well as receiving free festival tickets.
San Diego Pride isn’t just an organization that puts on Pride weekend events or stands up for the entire LGBT community. It also is an organization that distributes funds to organizations that serve LGBT community members, as well as mentoring and training folk to learn how to fill unfilled needs of the community. There is an opportunity for trans community members to receive assistance from Pride, if they want it.
