Pride Without Borders
Being born with talent, brilliance, or being born LGBTQ is as equally spread throughout the world as human life. What is not equally distributed is opportunity. San Diego Pride works year-round to change that dynamic through education, advocacy, and creating new opportunities for those of us in the LGBTQ community to learn and thrive. We manifest this work through our efforts in our youth programs, women’s programs, trans programs, and more.
After the U. S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico marched in San Diego Pride for the first time last year, we were asked if we could convene a meeting to address how we could all better support the LGBTQ community in Tijuana. Since that time, a binational coalition of organizations and individuals from San Diego Pride, the ACLU, The Center, Councilmember Georgette Gómez’ office, and the U. S. Consulate has been working together to put on an LGBTQ leadership development conference in Tijuana in May of this year entitled Orgullo Sin Fronteras (Pride without Borders).
We may be two cities in two nations, but we are one, global LGBTQ community. Some may wish to focus on building walls, but we at Pride are looking to build bridges with our LGBTQ community wherever we may live. Our San Diego LGBTQ community has a long history of working with and supporting our siblings south of the border, and we hope to strengthen that support and their local leadership capacity, as together we persist with pride.
Esta conferencia se llevará a cabo en español.
Fernando Lopez was the Executive Director of San Diego Pride. Lopez’s years of LGBT advocacy, nonprofit management, public education, diversity consulting, media relations, guest lectures, and organizing have made them a consistent presence ensuring the struggles of the LGBT community are ever visible.
