By Sister Dana Van Iquity of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Hundreds of thousands of visitors from outside the Bay Area will attend San Francisco Pride this year. The 44th annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration and Parade takes place June 28 and 29. With over 200 parade contingents, 300 exhibitors, and 23 community-run stages and venues, the two-day SF PC&P is the largest free gathering of LGBTQ people and allies in the nation.
For a fun, quick history lesson, check the last two paragraphs of this article.
Celebration Location & Times
On June 28 and 29, the Civic Center is the location for the Celebration and all the booths and stages. On Saturday, the hours are noon to 6 pm. On Sunday, the hours are 11 am to 6:30 pm, when you may be asked to make a donation of $5 to $10 as you enter the gates—in support of more than 60 local nonprofit community partners.
With over 300 exhibitors and nonprofit booths at the event, San Francisco Pride offers a wide variety of artists, local and national businesses, nonprofits, artisans, food and beverages. SF Pride makes a special effort to make exhibitor booths affordable to local nonprofits that often use their space to educate, raise much-needed funds and connect with the community. There’s something at Pride for everyone!
You can enjoy beverage discounts all day at Pride by making a $5 minimum donation at the event entrance gates. In return for your generous support, you will get a donation sticker that earns you discounts on beverages at SF Pride designated beverage booths—all day long!
Throughout the site you’ll find booths selling water, soda, juice and other nonalcoholic beverages. If you choose to purchase alcohol at the event, please drink responsibly and remember to stay hydrated. Civic Center Plaza and UN Plaza are designated as official smoke-free spaces.
Parade Route & Times
The Pride Parade is Sunday, June 29, along Market Street with kickoff at 10:30 am, starting at Beale Street and ending at 8th Street. This year’s theme is “Color Our World with Pride!” The social mission is “to educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people.”
Facilities & Accessibility
Free child-care facilities and a range of services for people with disabilities are available. With special parade-viewing areas and sign language interpretation at all performance stages, the aim is to make the event accessible to everyone. For details about accessibility, log on to the website: sfpride.org/access
Parade Grandstand Tickets and Entertainment
Grandstand seating is available for the Parade, and SF Pride will host its annual VIP Party at City Hall on Sunday from 2-5 pm. Tickets and info for both are available at sfpride.org
Speakers, entertainers, and special guests at this year’s event include: New York Times bestselling author Janet Mock; popular TV personality Ross Matthews; DOMA litigator Roberta Kaplan; former Congressman Barney Frank; fashion correspondent EJ Johnson; renowned comedian Marga Gomez; Billboard Top 10 artist Debby Holiday; Iceland’s electrifying Steed Lord; South African-born attorney and human rights activist Melanie Nathan; San Francisco musical natives The She’s and Katdelic; and much more. The Grammy award-winning Mexican synthpop band Belanova will be performing at the Latin Stage on Sunday. A complete list of activities, entertainment, and event information can be found at sfpride.org
Celebrity Grand Marshals
Janet Mock is a writer, the founder of the #girlslikeus project, and a New York Times bestselling author of Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. After publicly coming out as a trans woman in 2011, Mock started the #girlslikeus project, a movement that encourages trans women to live visibly.
Ross Mathews is a popular television personality and author of Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence. He also has been working with OraQuick, the first in-home rapid HIV test, on the “Life as We Know It” campaign to get gay and bi-sexual men talking and testing themselves for HIV.
Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan is a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul, Weiss LLP. Kaplan successfully argued the case of United States v. Windsor before the United States Supreme Court. In its landmark decision, the Court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated equal protection principles of the United States Constitution. The consequences of the Windsor decision have been both rapid and profound. At least 18 lower courts throughout the United States—including in Ohio, New Mexico, Kentucky, Texas and Utah—have held, relying on Windsor, that gay couples should be accorded equal rights under the law.
Special Guests
Barney Frank is Guest of Honor. Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Frank (the first openly gay U.S. Congressman, serving from 1981 to 2013), will be accompanied by his husband James Ready. Frank was the co-sponsor of the financial industry reform, Dodd-Frank Act, and served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee from 2007-2011.
EJ Johnson is Celebrity Guest. The 22-year old LA-native, son of NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Cookie Johnson, is taking on the fashion world by storm. News fashion correspondent for E! NY Fashion Week, EJ Johnson continues to make his mark on the industry by providing expert knowledge on all things fashion and entertainment related. EJ launched his own fashion blog, EJJohnsonStyle.com.
Grand Marshals and Honorees
The public selected by vote Community Grand Marshals, Organization Grand Marshal, and the Pink Brick Recipient. Additionally, the SF Pride Board of Directors has named a Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal, an Honorary Grand Marshal and issued a Gilbert Baker Pride Founder’s Award for 2014.
The Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal is Judy Grahn. Activist poet, writer, and cultural theorist, she has inspired feminism, women’s spirituality movements and lesbian activism. Grahn was a member of the first lesbian feminist collectives on the West Coast: the Gay Women’s Liberation Group, which established A Woman’s Place, the first women’s bookstore, and The Woman’s Press Collective.
Community Grand Marshals
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has been an activist and community organizer for over 40 years. From her work with the Mattachine Society in the early 60s through the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion to her current work as executive director of the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project, she has worked tirelessly for social justice and the human rights of transgender women of color. Miss Major has spoken around the world about concerns of transwomen of color in the prison industrial complex.
Jewlyes Gutierrez, a 16-year-old Hercules transgender teen, caught the public’s attention when she fought back to defend herself during a schoolyard fight, after dealing with two years of peer bullying that school authorities failed to address, despite complaints brought to their attention. Ms. Gutierrez was subsequently charged with assault and battery by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office; however, her attackers were not. An online petition in support of dropping the charges gathered over 200,000 signatures in just a few weeks.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a longtime, queer/affordable housing rights activist, has worked for the Housing Rights Committee of SF for 14 years, doing tenant counseling and advocacy. Mecca is author/editor of four books and is a musician and a performer, including his recent appearance in a musical he wrote called “This Boy is Just Too Strange.”
Melanie Nathan is a South African attorney, former Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, and founder of Private Courts—a global human rights advocacy firm based in the Bay Area. She is known for her popular advocacy blog at www.oblogdeeoblogda.me and her LGBTQ activism. Nathan’s pro bono work includes assisting persecuted LGBTQ Africans to escape from countries where they are criminalized. She advocated for bi-national same-sex couples and has secured the release of LGBTQ asylum detainees. She brought the issue of “corrective rape” in South Africa to the international arena, drafting reforms for the SADOJ, while participating in the establishment of a Government led task team.
Organizational Community Grand Marshal
The public selected the Trans March as the 2014 Organizational Community Grand Marshal. Its mission is to inspire all trans and gender non-conforming people to realize a world where they are safe, loved, and empowered. It strives to create a space for our diverse communities to unite and achieve the social justice and equality that each of us deserves. Several activists organized the first Trans March on June 25, 2004, with only a few hundred people attending. Today the San Francisco Trans March is one of the largest trans events in the entire world, and San Francisco’s largest transgender Pride event. Trans March is always the Friday of Pride weekend, starting with a gathering in Dolores Park, followed by a march to Civic Center.
Honorary Grand Marshal
Chelsea Manning was chosen by the newly elected SF Pride Board of Directors in the spirit of community healing, and at the behest of SF Pride’s membership. While Manning will not be able to attend the Celebration and Parade, trans rights activist, Lauren McNamara, will serve as her official representative.
Gilbert Baker Pride Founder’s Award
Designed to honor those who have made a significant and historical impact on the LGBTQ community and the movement for LGBTQ rights, the Founder’s Award is given to Dr. Ted McIlvenna, an 82-year-old United Methodist clergyman who was assigned in the early 60s as a missionary to those persons who had chosen alternate sexual explorations and identities in their lives. Ted is now the President of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and Trustee of the world’s largest collection of erotic materials.
Pink Brick Award Recipient
A symbol of the first brick hurled at the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the Pink Brick Award Recipient is an opportunity to highlight an individual or organization that has done significant harm to the LGBTQ community. It is also an opportunity to educate the community and the Pink Brick recipient about relevant issues. Scott Lively receives this dishonor. He beat out Goodluck Jonathan and Vladimir Putin for this year’s Pink Brick. While initially a close race, in the end, Lively took the faux honor with almost 36% of the vote. An extremist anti-gay U.S.pastor, Lively is accused of engineering the Uganda “Kill The Gays” bill. He allegedly said LGBTQ people are the ‘new Nazis’ and recommended Russia’s “gay propaganda” laws.
And Now for a Little History
Every year I read an editorial asking for the “freaks and drag queens” to please step aside and not ruin it for LGBTQ rights. And I need to remind those naysayers that it was drag queens and transgenders, way back at the end of June 1969 in New York City, hanging out at their local gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, who decided they would no longer put up with daily police harassment and arrests that were part of “normal” homosexual life for these people. At that time it was illegal to be gay, so there was no openly gay pride, no openly gay politics, and most certainly no gay parade.
On that particular night, the Stonewall patrons initiated local action that was to eventually lead to national gay liberation. They fought back. For several days and nights the Stonewall Rebellion raged on, and the so-called sissies beat the men-in-blue in a rather violent uprising (and I don’t mean just with purses). So you see, it was a very abnormal group of “freaky people wearing funny clothes” back then who made it possible for us today to cocktail and cruise undisturbed in the gay or lesbian bar of our choice. And walk down Market Street holding hands. And, for that matter, those nelly fellas paved the way for every one of our civil rights marches. So when you see a drag queen or “freaky person,” give ‹em the thumbs-up and thank ‹em for the legacy that continues.Flame on, freaky people!!
allies in the nation.
For a fun, quick history lesson, check the last two paragraphs of this article.
Celebration Location & Times
On June 28 and 29, the Civic Center is the location for the Celebration and all the booths and stages. On Saturday, the hours are noon to 6 pm. On Sunday, the hours are 11 am to 6:30 pm, when you may be asked to make a donation of $5 to $10 as you enter the gates—in support of more than 60 local nonprofit community partners.
With over 300 exhibitors and nonprofit booths at the event, San Francisco Pride offers a wide variety of artists, local and national businesses, nonprofits, artisans, food and beverages. SF Pride makes a special effort to make exhibitor booths affordable to local nonprofits that often use their space to educate, raise much-needed funds and connect with the community. There’s something at Pride for everyone!
You can enjoy beverage discounts all day at Pride by making a $5 minimum donation at the event entrance gates. In return for your generous support, you will get a donation sticker that earns you discounts on beverages at SF Pride designated beverage booths—all day long!
Throughout the site you’ll find booths selling water, soda, juice and other nonalcoholic beverages. If you choose to purchase alcohol at the event, please drink responsibly and remember to stay hydrated. Civic Center Plaza and UN Plaza are designated as official smoke-free spaces.
Parade Route & Times
The Pride Parade is Sunday, June 29, along Market Street with kickoff at 10:30 am, starting at Beale Street and ending at 8th Street. This year’s theme is “Color Our World with Pride!” The social mission is “to educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people.”
Facilities & Accessibility
Free child-care facilities and a range of services for people with disabilities are available. With special parade-viewing areas and sign language interpretation at all performance stages, the aim is to make the event accessible to everyone. For details about accessibility, log on to the website: sfpride.org/access
Parade Grandstand Tickets and Entertainment
Grandstand seating is available for the Parade, and SF Pride will host its annual VIP Party at City Hall on Sunday from 2-5 pm. Tickets and info for both are available at sfpride.org
Speakers, entertainers, and special guests at this year’s event include: New York Times bestselling author Janet Mock; popular TV personality Ross Matthews; DOMA litigator Roberta Kaplan; former Congressman Barney Frank; fashion correspondent EJ Johnson; renowned comedian Marga Gomez; Billboard Top 10 artist Debby Holiday; Iceland’s electrifying Steed Lord; South African-born attorney and human rights activist Melanie Nathan; San Francisco musical natives The She’s and Katdelic; and much more. The Grammy award-winning Mexican synthpop band Belanova will be performing at the Latin Stage on Sunday. A complete list of activities, entertainment, and event information can be found at sfpride.org
Celebrity Grand Marshals
Janet Mock is a writer, the founder of the #girlslikeus project, and a New York Times bestselling author of Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. After publicly coming out as a trans woman in 2011, Mock started the #girlslikeus project, a movement that encourages trans women to live visibly.
Ross Mathews is a popular television personality and author of Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence. He also has been working with OraQuick, the first in-home rapid HIV test, on the “Life as We Know It” campaign to get gay and bi-sexual men talking and testing themselves for HIV.
Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan is a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul, Weiss LLP. Kaplan successfully argued the case of United States v. Windsor before the United States Supreme Court. In its landmark decision, the Court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated equal protection principles of the United States Constitution. The consequences of the Windsor decision have been both rapid and profound. At least 18 lower courts throughout the United States—including in Ohio, New Mexico, Kentucky, Texas and Utah—have held, relying on Windsor, that gay couples should be accorded equal rights under the law.
Special Guests
Barney Frank is Guest of Honor. Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Frank (the first openly gay U.S. Congressman, serving from 1981 to 2013), will be accompanied by his husband James Ready. Frank was the co-sponsor of the financial industry reform, Dodd-Frank Act, and served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee from 2007-2011.
EJ Johnson is Celebrity Guest. The 22-year old LA-native, son of NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Cookie Johnson, is taking on the fashion world by storm. News fashion correspondent for E! NY Fashion Week, EJ Johnson continues to make his mark on the industry by providing expert knowledge on all things fashion and entertainment related. EJ launched his own fashion blog, EJJohnsonStyle.com.
Grand Marshals and Honorees
The public selected by vote Community Grand Marshals, Organization Grand Marshal, and the Pink Brick Recipient. Additionally, the SF Pride Board of Directors has named a Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal, an Honorary Grand Marshal and issued a Gilbert Baker Pride Founder’s Award for 2014.
The Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal is Judy Grahn. Activist poet, writer, and cultural theorist, she has inspired feminism, women’s spirituality movements and lesbian activism. Grahn was a member of the first lesbian feminist collectives on the West Coast: the Gay Women’s Liberation Group, which established A Woman’s Place, the first women’s bookstore, and The Woman’s Press Collective.
Community Grand Marshals
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has been an activist and community organizer for over 40 years. From her work with the Mattachine Society in the early 60s through the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion to her current work as executive director of the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project, she has worked tirelessly for social justice and the human rights of transgender women of color. Miss Major has spoken around the world about concerns of transwomen of color in the prison industrial complex.
Jewlyes Gutierrez, a 16-year-old Hercules transgender teen, caught the public’s attention when she fought back to defend herself during a schoolyard fight, after dealing with two years of peer bullying that school authorities failed to address, despite complaints brought to their attention. Ms. Gutierrez was subsequently charged with assault and battery by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office; however, her attackers were not. An online petition in support of dropping the charges gathered over 200,000 signatures in just a few weeks.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a longtime, queer/affordable housing rights activist, has worked for the Housing Rights Committee of SF for 14 years, doing tenant counseling and advocacy. Mecca is author/editor of four books and is a musician and a performer, including his recent appearance in a musical he wrote called “This Boy is Just Too Strange.”
Melanie Nathan is a South African attorney, former Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, and founder of Private Courts—a global human rights advocacy firm based in the Bay Area. She is known for her popular advocacy blog at www.oblogdeeoblogda.me and her LGBTQ activism. Nathan’s pro bono work includes assisting persecuted LGBTQ Africans to escape from countries where they are criminalized. She advocated for bi-national same-sex couples and has secured the release of LGBTQ asylum detainees. She brought the issue of “corrective rape” in South Africa to the international arena, drafting reforms for the SADOJ, while participating in the establishment of a Government led task team.
Organizational Community Grand Marshal
The public selected the Trans March as the 2014 Organizational Community Grand Marshal. Its mission is to inspire all trans and gender non-conforming people to realize a world where they are safe, loved, and empowered. It strives to create a space for our diverse communities to unite and achieve the social justice and equality that each of us deserves. Several activists organized the first Trans March on June 25, 2004, with only a few hundred people attending. Today the San Francisco Trans March is one of the largest trans events in the entire world, and San Francisco’s largest transgender Pride event. Trans March is always the Friday of Pride weekend, starting with a gathering in Dolores Park, followed by a march to Civic Center.
Honorary Grand Marshal
Chelsea Manning was chosen by the newly elected SF Pride Board of Directors in the spirit of community healing, and at the behest of SF Pride’s membership. While Manning will not be able to attend the Celebration and Parade, trans rights activist, Lauren McNamara, will serve as her official representative.
Gilbert Baker Pride Founder’s Award
Designed to honor those who have made a significant and historical impact on the LGBTQ community and the movement for LGBTQ rights, the Founder’s Award is given to Dr. Ted McIlvenna, an 82-year-old United Methodist clergyman who was assigned in the early 60s as a missionary to those persons who had chosen alternate sexual explorations and identities in their lives. Ted is now the President of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and Trustee of the world’s largest collection of erotic materials.
Pink Brick Award Recipient
A symbol of the first brick hurled at the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the Pink Brick Award Recipient is an opportunity to highlight an individual or organization that has done significant harm to the LGBTQ community. It is also an opportunity to educate the community and the Pink Brick recipient about relevant issues. Scott Lively receives this dishonor. He beat out Goodluck Jonathan and Vladimir Putin for this year’s Pink Brick. While initially a close race, in the end, Lively took the faux honor with almost 36% of the vote. An extremist anti-gay U.S.pastor, Lively is accused of engineering the Uganda “Kill The Gays” bill. He allegedly said LGBTQ people are the ‘new Nazis’ and recommended Russia’s “gay propaganda” laws.
And Now for a Little History
Every year I read an editorial asking for the “freaks and drag queens” to please step aside and not ruin it for LGBTQ rights. And I need to remind those naysayers that it was drag queens and transgenders, way back at the end of June 1969 in New York City, hanging out at their local gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, who decided they would no longer put up with daily police harassment and arrests that were part of “normal” homosexual life for these people. At that time it was illegal to be gay, so there was no openly gay pride, no openly gay politics, and most certainly no gay parade.
On that particular night, the Stonewall patrons initiated local action that was to eventually lead to national gay liberation. They fought back. For several days and nights the Stonewall Rebellion raged on, and the so-called sissies beat the men-in-blue in a rather violent uprising (and I don’t mean just with purses). So you see, it was a very abnormal group of “freaky people wearing funny clothes” back then who made it possible for us today to cocktail and cruise undisturbed in the gay or lesbian bar of our choice. And walk down Market Street holding hands. And, for that matter, those nelly fellas paved the way for every one of our civil rights marches. So when you see a drag queen or “freaky person,” give ‹em the thumbs-up and thank ‹em for the legacy that continues.Flame on, freaky people!!
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