The coronavirus pandemic has forced the cancellation of Pride celebrations all around the globe. In San Diego, where Pride weekend is our region’s largest civic event, the loss is especially devastating.
In many ways our community looks forward to and depends on Pride every year. LGBTQ people are still not treated equally under the law. Shame, stigma and fear still wedge LGBTQ people away from social networks of — too often with dire consequences. Pride organizations and the modern-day LGBTQ civil rights movement were not built on a foundation of joy.
LGBTQ-serving organizations, Pride events, media visibility and the tattered patchwork quilt of legal protections were all forged by the strength of our community’s legacy of resilience in response to trauma.
In 1969, civic and social spaces where the LGBTQ community could be out and safe were few and far between. Homosexual acts and gender nonconformity were criminalized. Our community was constantly subject to systemic legal discrimination and police brutality.
Our community’s response to a police raid in 1969 was not only to riot for three days, it was to preserve the healthy momentum and strength of that response to that trauma that brought our community together in solidarity. Our annual marches were born; we found Pride.
For LGBTQ people, familial and societal rejection also meant that we had to find our own families, build our own community and create our social networks. LGBTQ community centers were founded to help us find ourselves, care for one another and connect each other to vital resources.
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Over the decades, groups and organizations began to form around areas of interest so of our community could still pursue their joy in spaces where we could feel safe. Theaters, choruses, art collectives, film festivals, athletic groups, affirming faith congregations and LGBTQ-owned businesses grew and began to help our community thrive.
These groups provided a sense of belonging, camaraderie and kinship. They allowed us the ability to let our guard down, to not be constantly looking over our shoulders.
That said, far too many in our community still cannot enjoy these feelings of safety or protection in their day-to-day lives. We are fortunate to live in California, where LGBTQ legal protections exist. But LGBTQ individuals don’t necessarily know if their daily interactions with anyone who is providing customer service or even health care harbors hate or discrimination, making any interaction one enters in to stressful.
For many, it is only when going to a known and trusted LGBTQ welcoming businesses, nonprofit, group or organization that people in our community can feel truly safe. This is especially true for of our community who live at the vulnerable intersection of marginalized identities. Daily, we may additionally face our own fears of the impacts of the implicit biases of others with regard to race, ethnicity, ability, age, religion, nationality and gender.
Twenty-eight states still do not expressly protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment and housing, and 29 states don’t expressly protect public accommodations. Federally, we have marriage rights, but even those are under attack. Our eyes are currently on the Supreme Court as we await a decision regarding employment protections. While all of those legal protections are important, there is still much work to do.
Every year, Pride in San Diego brings together hundreds of thousands of people to celebrate our diversity and bring to light the issues our movement still faces. Without Pride in person in 2020, so many will be denied their day of liberation and their opportunity to find family, and it will limit our ability to fund year-round education, advocacy and direct services.
While COVID-19 has impacted the world, LGBTQ people face unique challenges. Safety isn’t a guarantee for LGBTQ youth in their homes, employees at their jobs, patients receiving care or seniors in assisted living. For many of us, the loss of our LGBTQ groups and spaces has meant a loss of our safety.
For generations, creating civic spaces where of the LGBTQ community can feel safe, welcome and authentically themselves is something our movement has been fighting for. These spaces help to heal our community and make us feel whole, and ing their existence is a social justice issue.
Throughout this crisis, I have witnessed our community respond, adapt and innovate. We have leaned in to serve. Our direct service nonprofits have adapted to add for COVID-19 patients and the broader community.
Our LGBTQ-owned businesses have found ways to stay open, care for their employees and our community while complying with these new restrictions. Even though our annual Pride events must be virtual this year, our LGBTQ entertainers and artists have found ways to bring their talents and joy streaming into our living rooms.
While these times are painful for all of us, our community will continue to find resiliency in creative solutions until we can be physically together again, and we will be together again.
Together we are safer. Together we are stronger. Together we are brave. Together, we rise.
López, the executive director of San Diego Pride, lives in University Heights.
