What will Pride be like as we come together again? Three years dragged on and blinked by us since our last full-scale Pride marked by nearly two years of isolation and survival. All too many “first Prides” denied and delayed, desperate to burst free. Cresting over the horizon is the brilliant liberation of our dreams, closeted by pandemics and shame.
Growing shadows of hate have loomed and lingered far too long. It is why we have Pride.
We do not have Pride because we are free. We have Pride because we are not. Our community will not let fear, hate, and intimidation win. We will not shrink ourselves or return to the closets and prisons of our past.
Your kisses deserve sunshine. Your love deserves free air. Your clenched jaw deserves laughter. Your clasped hands deserve to openly embrace found family. Your body is beautiful and deserves to dance in daylight. Your pronouns are perfect and deserve affirmation.
Pride is a reminder that our celebration is justice. Our joy is defiance. Our love is insubordinate. Our revelry is resistance.
This Pride, we will unshackle our hearts and bodies from anyone’s expectations but our own. We will rise unapologetically to indulge in being radically only and absolutely who we know we truly are.
I invite you to bravely discard fear. Seize hope. Be free.
Whether you’ve been with us since Stonewall, or this is your first, welcome to Pride. Welcome home. Together, we will pursue Justice with Joy!
With Pride,
Fernando Zweifach López
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
Executive Director
San Diego Pride
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.
