Permission to Create 🎨🎙️🦄

Dear Pride Family,

Every February, our Pride Youth Programs focus on highlighting and celebrating visual and performing arts. I absolutely love this time of year as it is an opportunity to see young people create and tap into some joy. 

However, as an adult who works with youth, sometimes I find myself having to justify to other adults the importance of giving young people unrestricted access to arts education and experiences. Given the unceasing news of anti-LGBTQ+ violence targeted towards young people, particularly trans and nonbinary folks, I feel the need to share a couple of things with y’all. 

I need you to know that the youngest members of our community are in pain. I need you to know that they need canvases, stages, and podiums through which they can release this pain. And through the creative process of expression, they can begin to heal. 

I need you to know that they need community. I need you to know that they need us. 

Whether we like it or not, we are bound together across generations by the freedoms that we have been denied. As a community, art has always been our boundless unifier. Art allows us to express ourselves authentically, to emote sincerely and without restriction. It is a tool for resistance and a salve for the fires of rage within us. 

So I ask you, dear friend, to join us over the next few weeks as we give ourselves and each other permission to create. As we give our youth spaces to show up and teach us about themselves. We will kick off this Youth Art Season with Family Art Day on Saturday, February 24th. This space is for families of all ages-blood or chosen- to gather to create beautiful things, messy things, and true things. More than that, it is a space to perhaps witness each other in a moment of healing.

May your paintbrush never be dry,

Cris Sotomayor (they/them/elle) 
Senior Manager of Programs