• Home
  • Advertising
  • Support Us
  • About us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Digital Archive
Sunday, July 20, 2025
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
lgbtq-san-diego-county-news-logo-475x166
DONATE
  • A&E
    • Theater Reviews
    • Art
    • Film
    • Music
    • Books
    • Q Syndicate
    • Celebrity Features
  • News & Features
    • Cover stories
    • News Briefs
    • Court News
    • Politics
    • Elected Official Reports
      • Summer Stephan
      • Chris Ward
    • Obituaries
  • Food & Drink
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Publisher’s Point
    • Editorials
    • Guest Editorial
    • Community Voices
  • Lifestyle
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
  • Columns
    • The Unsent Messages Project
    • The Shoulders I Stand Upon
    • Conversations with Nicole
    • Curtain Call
    • Back Out With Benny
    • Trans Talk with Connor
    • Out of the Archives
    • Pozitively Michael
    • Black Lives
    • Powerful Black Women
    • Digital Vault
      • Big Mike and Friends
      • Foodie Flashes
      • Positive Thoughts
      • Houston We Have a Problem
      • Life Beyond Therapy
      • Let’s Fitness Together
      • Queer Parenting
      • Notes from Toni
      • The Frivolist
      • C…Community
      • Frankly Speaking
      • Generation Stew!
      • Gettin’ Ziggy With It
      • Hot Dish
      • My Good Tootie
      • The C Word … Community
  • Business
    • Business Profile
    • Equality Business Directory
    • LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce
  • Out & About
    • Calendar
    • Pride
Subscribe
lgbtq-san-diego-county-news-logo
  • A&E
    • Theater Reviews
    • Art
    • Film
    • Music
    • Books
    • Q Syndicate
    • Celebrity Features
  • News & Features
    • Cover stories
    • News Briefs
    • Court News
    • Politics
    • Elected Official Reports
      • Summer Stephan
      • Chris Ward
    • Obituaries
  • Food & Drink
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Publisher’s Point
    • Editorials
    • Guest Editorial
    • Community Voices
  • Lifestyle
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
  • Columns
    • The Unsent Messages Project
    • The Shoulders I Stand Upon
    • Conversations with Nicole
    • Curtain Call
    • Back Out With Benny
    • Trans Talk with Connor
    • Out of the Archives
    • Pozitively Michael
    • Black Lives
    • Powerful Black Women
    • Digital Vault
      • Big Mike and Friends
      • Foodie Flashes
      • Positive Thoughts
      • Houston We Have a Problem
      • Life Beyond Therapy
      • Let’s Fitness Together
      • Queer Parenting
      • Notes from Toni
      • The Frivolist
      • C…Community
      • Frankly Speaking
      • Generation Stew!
      • Gettin’ Ziggy With It
      • Hot Dish
      • My Good Tootie
      • The C Word … Community
  • Business
    • Business Profile
    • Equality Business Directory
    • LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce
  • Out & About
    • Calendar
    • Pride
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
lgbtq-san-diego-county-news
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
Home Community Voices

Local Pride Proclamations Hit Record Numbers as National Trends Move Away from Equality

By Allan Acevedo

06/30/2022
in Community Voices, Feature, Featured, Features
1
Local Pride Proclamations Hit Record Numbers as National Trends Move Away from Equality

(image by Shutterstock)

0
SHARES
81
VIEWS

While San Diego Pride’s much-anticipated annual rally, parade, and festival are just days away, for North County residents and visitors, we already got a taste of Pride in June with record-setting participation – in more ways than one.

Notably, The North County LGBTQ Resource Center’s Pride by the Beach attracted an estimated 20,000 participants to its family and pet friendly, drug and alcohol-free event. The festival featured more than 100 vendors and a day packed with performances, speeches, and entertainment.

The stage was extra full when time came to call for elected officials to join Center staff and Pride volunteers on stage.

In that moment, Max Disposti, founder and executive director of the Center, emphasized in a social media post that, “The biggest joy for me is to see our staff and volunteers with their heart full of joy, the love and support for each other and the community, a dream come true after years of hard labor and determination.”

But pride and the community’s labor were in full force the whole month of June, not just at their June 11 Pride festival in Oceanside, serving all the north county communities.

(image by Shutterstock)

Record-Number Pride Month Municipal Proclamations

Significantly, this year saw the most proclamation issued for Pride Month, in recognition of the Center’s work. This year, The County of San Diego, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Escondido, Vista, and Encinitas issued proclamations. And for the very first time, The City of San Marcos issues a beautiful proclamation as well.

These seven proclamations stand as a testament to the efforts to increase visibility and build community in our coastal and inland north county communities. In 2019, only Oceanside and Carlsbad issued proclamations.

Additionally, Palomar College, under the direction of Pride Center Coordinator, Dr. Abbie Cory, raised the Pride Flag on campus for the first time, as did Oceanside Unified School District with a flag raising ceremony at its offices.

In Vista, Councilmember Corinna Contreras, who also serves on the North County LGBTQ Resource Center Board of Directors, introduced the proposal to raise the Pride Progress flag, which passed unanimously, in an emotional meeting with many speakers celebrating the progress towards inclusivity.

This support throughout the month underscores the 15 years of community building and progress that Pride by the Beach has helped bring about through their annual celebration. It also continues themes from the Center’s 10-year anniversary gala, in October 2021, which celebrated ten years since they first opened their doors to serve the community.

While many will celebrate these accomplishments, especially for those from these communities, some may still argue that these proclamations are just empty words which give politicians an opportunity to grandstand without actually helping our community.

While a proclamation, by itself, may not create the systemic change we seek to create in the world, those proclamations serve multiple purposes. 

Seeking and receiving a proclamation creates a platform for queer folks to speak before municipal bodies and accept the proclamations while also sharing why this is so personal to them. In Escondido, Jet Finnell, Pride volunteer leader, shared about growing up in the area and never believing they would have such an opportunity before the council. Disposti, Pride Director Lisa Nava, and I each also got to speak at both in-person and virtual council chambers to accept these proclamations.

This process of working with elected officials and staff to draft and issue these proclamations helps build working relationships which can be revisited to advance other issues, ensure elected official participation in community events, and to hold them accountable if they fail to live up to the values they espoused during Pride Month.

Most importantly, proclamations create and hold Queer space in places where our community has historically been shut out or even when allowed in, only tolerated.

These moments are our time to reflect on progress, locally, statewide, nationally, and internationally, while reaffirming our commitment to do more to support LGBTQIA+ rights at home and abroad.

Despite these moments of progress, we know these steps are made along the landscape of ongoing, relentless attacks on our community, especially our most vulnerable, our Trans youth. While record number local proclamations were issued for Pride Month here locally, we know that nationally, record-number anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have been introduced and are making their way to codify hate and discrimination in school boards and state legislative bodies around the country.

Now, with the dismantling of nationally recognized abortion protections, we understand even more clearly the connections in our collective fight for bodily autonomy and hope that more folks than ever are galvanized to ensure representation and inclusion at every table. 

And we must fight every fight, local or national, for inclusion because we can’t take for granted that our progress is linear.

Next Post
Bak for Pride: Ben Bakson to Headline San Diego Pride’s Coronation Ball

Bak for Pride: Ben Bakson to Headline San Diego Pride’s Coronation Ball

Comments 1

  1. Lisa nava says:
    3 years ago

    Thank you for this well written article detailing the Pride month proclamations

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

THANK YOU!!!! Please Stay Tuned!

LGBTQ San Diego County News is Updating!

After a necessary pause for my healing, I am making important adjustments and updates to the company and website.  These changes are vital for the survival of our community’s only LGBTQ newspaper.

I appreciate your patience and support. Stay tuned for more updates, including a relaunch of the website, and the return of our print edition in the near future. Give at LGBTQSD.news/Support

Still here, still fighting. Onward!

SUPPORT OUR PAPER!

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

READ PAST DIGITAL ISSUES

lgbtq_san_diego_county_news

© 2024 LGBTQ San Diego County News. All rights reserved.

Navigate our site

  • About
  • Support Our Newspaper
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result
  • A&E
    • Theater Reviews
    • Art
    • Film
    • Music
    • Books
    • Q Syndicate
    • Celebrity Features
  • News & Features
    • Cover stories
    • Gay News Briefs
    • Court News
    • Politics
    • Elected Official Reports
      • Summer Stephan
      • A Note from Assemblymember Chris Ward
    • Obituaries
  • Food & Drink
    • Restaurant Reviews
  • Opinion
    • Publisher’s Point
    • Editorials
    • Guest Editorial
    • Community Voices
  • Lifestyle
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
  • Columns
    • The Unsent Messages Project
    • The Shoulders I Stand Upon
    • Conversations with Nicole
    • Curtain Call
    • Back Out With Benny
    • Trans Talk with Connor
    • Out of the Archives
    • Pozitively Michael
    • Black Lives
    • Powerful Black Women
    • Digital Vault
      • Big Mike and Friends
      • Foodie Flashes
      • Positive Thoughts
      • Houston We Have a Problem
      • Let’s Fitness Together
      • Life Beyond Therapy
      • Queer Parenting
      • Notes from Toni
      • The Frivolist
      • The C Word … Community
      • Frankly Speaking
      • Generation Stew!
      • Gettin’ Ziggy With It
      • Hot Dish
      • My Good Tootie
  • Business
    • Business Profile
    • Equality Business Directory
    • LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce
  • Out & About
    • Calendar
    • Pride
  • About
    • Advertising
    • Support Our Newspaper
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Archive

© 2024 LGBTQ San Diego County News. All rights reserved.