By Mel Viloria
San Diego Pride, best known for the San Diego Pride Parade and Festival—the largest civic-event in San Diego—also operates as a year-round education and advocacy organization, providing over 30 programs such as Youth Leadership Academy, She Fest, Transgender Day of Empowerment, QAPIMEDA & Latinx Coalitions, Art of Pride, DevOUT and more (if you are in any part of the LGBTQ+ community, there is a space for you in our organization). In addition to our annual festivities, San Diego Pride has donated over 3 million dollars to LGBTQ-serving nonprofits through our Pride Community Grants, making us one of the most philanthropic Pride organizations in the world.
While COVID-19 has prevented us from putting on our normal celebration, we hosted over 38 community events in the month of July 2021, ensuring that our community can celebrate together, but in smaller, limited capacity satellite events. You can view the full list here. On Sunday, July 11, we hosted our Resilient Community march, highlighting that our community has made it out of multiple pandemics, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic and COVID, while acknowledging that Black trans women are still being murdered at a disproportionately higher rate, and thus, our work for equality is far from over. The Black LGBTQ Coalition, Latinx Coalition, and QAPIMEDA coalitions led the Resilient March last weekend to the tune of 16,000~ attendees that marched from Balboa Park to the Hillcrest Pride flag.