By: Joyce Gabiola, Head Archivist

​A few days ago, I thought about how my relationship with Pride has differed since coming out as gay in college. At that time, Pride meant that I could be closer to my full self in public (but still unknown to my parents). It meant that I would attend the Pride festival and freely be in a crowd of people who I felt were just like me. It meant that I would march in the Pride parade as a member of a community organization or cheer from the sidewalk with my friends. As this was all in the southern part of Texas in the month of June, it also meant that I was always drenched with sweat. It also meant that, year after year, I would feel more empowered to come out to more people, including my parents, eventually. It meant that in June being gay/queer would temporarily seem mainstream rather than ‘other’. Decades later, this feeling has become the norm for me. As far as my queerness, I don’t feel so much as ‘other’ anymore. And I acknowledge that this feeling is a privilege.

By: Gabrielle Garcia, Project Assistant

While scanning objects from an unnamed flat file drawer of miscellaneous materials from San Diego Pride events, Diversionary Theatre, and a private artist, I came across a small double-sided flyer from 1976 that immediately caught my eye. The words “200 Years of Freedom for Whom?” across the top of the first page are bold and unrelenting. As of 1976, the United States celebrated its 200th anniversary of existence, a country built and maintained by the systemic exploitation and disenfranchisement of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, disabled people, immigrants, and poor and working class people. 1976 was also the year of the second permitted San Diego Pride Parade, entitled “Gay Spirit”, six years after the events at the Stonewall Inn in New York.1 LGBTQ pride marches and events across the United States were born out of the Stonewall Uprising, led by Black and brown queer and trans folks in response to homophobic, transphobic, racist, and classist police violence in 1969. It is necessary to say that LGBTQ pride owes its very existence to the most marginalized community members who frequented the Stonewall Inn, including butch lesbians, trans folks, houseless folks, sex workers, drag queens, people of color, and those at the overlaps of these identities.