Dear Pride Family,
As we hurtle towards Pride week in San Diego, packed with events, meet-ups, mixers, protests and the gathering of friends, we are reminded of the true function and power of coming together in community, Pride, and queer joy.
In just a couple of months, Pride season will have passed and election season will be upon us. As we’ve seen in past years, the election will bring up heated conversations about our community members – targeting our gender expression, identity, and sexuality – which will reverberate through our TVs, our social media channels, at the water cooler, in public restrooms, and even on the playground. It will be then that the queer joy we’ve experienced during Pride, the friends and lovers we’ve connected with, the memories we’ve made with each other, and the social organizations we’ve become engaged with will be the most deeply needed. Queer joy and liberation are connected. We can’t keep fighting for liberation without the buoy of queer joy and the community that sustains us.
When the largest and most comprehensive survey on LGBTQ+ women who partner with women – a vision and dream of the late Urvashi Vaid – was released, the findings confirmed what many of us already know: while institutions often fail us, our queer friendships, family, and our allies save us. “LGBTQ+ women’s friendships are foundational to our health, well-being, and economic security. This largely ignored, crucial safety net deserves attention: The pressures on our friendships, given the level of violence and social and economic precarity we experience, is enormous… LGBTQ+ women’s friendships are perhaps our least appreciated and yet most impactful resource and refuge.”
We intentionally begin Pride Week in San Diego with She Fest – a FREE, volunteer-led program organized by 2SLGBTQIA+ women, non-binary people, and people who find community with these identities. For 10 years, they have held an intentionally trans-inclusive space for non-binary and women’s programming in our community offering music, workshops, small business and artisan vendors, and a space for people to connect to organizations that serve our community and each other. While the premise of the event is simple, this is critical community-building work that creates – through the process of its planning – an invaluable social support system for individuals in our community who are too often kept out of leadership. The skills the all-volunteer committee learns, the friendships they make with each other, the queer joy the event brings to the larger community, are all critical outcomes. These will pay dividends to our community when the Pride flags are tucked away and the negativity of the upcoming election cycle places LGBTQIA+ people in its crosshairs.
On a personal note for Jen, She Fest is the only LGBTQIA+ community event where they have never been misgendered. For Sarafina, it is the only community event where she was not treated as “ not queer enough” as a femme lesbian. These simple acknowledgments of the complexity of individual identities can be so powerful for people to experience. The great exhale you feel when you are in a space where you are understood and dare we say known.
We invite EVERYONE to join us at She Fest on Saturday – bring your dog (with booties for that hot asphalt!) for the return of the doggie fashion show, get connected to local LGBTQIA+ organizations, enjoy some phenomenal entertainment, and engage with all the activities that our brilliant She Fest committee has put together. Or help She Fest reach their goal of $10,000 in donations for their 10th anniversary!
We’ve got a long week of Pride events coming at ya, and we’re so excited to start this week with you in Hillcrest!
In Solidarity,
Jen LaBarbera (they/them) & Sarafina Scapicchio (she/her)
Interim Co-Executive Directors
San Diego Pride raises funds primarily through festival ticket and beverage sales, and through sponsorships, and exhibitor fees. These funds support San Diego Pride’s community philanthropy which has distributed more than $2.5 million in advancement of its mission to foster pride, equality, and respect for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities locally, nationally, and globally.
