HILLCREST (KGTV) \u2014 San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community gathered in Hillcrest Friday night to kick off Pride weekend.<\/p>\n
The kickoff was marked by a rally that honored local leaders , during the 50th anniversary of San Diego’s Stonewall legacy celebration.<\/p>\n
Stonewall was an event that marked a turning point for the LGBTQ community more than 50 years ago. <\/p>\n
The 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City began when police raided the Stonewall Inn, during a time when serving drinks to LGBTQ+ people was still illegal. It sparked a week-long protest that helped launch the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.<\/p>\n
That movement still resonates with many San Diegans today.<\/p>\n
“It’s the time when people stopped being afraid of being out in the open and saying, ‘Hey, we’re a part of this community and country too, and we deserve to be here. We pay our taxes, we pay our bills,” Matthew Jensen, a Hillcrest Association volunteer, said.<\/p>\n
Eric Wickham, another volunteer, reflected on the significance of Pride in California.<\/p>\n
“We’re so fortunate to live in Southern California, where we’re such a center of acceptance of love and community, and some of us were not fortunate to grow up in areas like that,” Wickham said, sharing that he’s originally from a small town in Ohio. “So, Stonewall for me is the movement of embracing and not stepping down from your authenticity of who you are.”<\/p>\n
Hillcrest has not had an easy year leading up to Pride. In the past year, the community has dealt with numerous attacks, from drive-by pellet gun shootings to vandalism and hate speech graffiti on public property.<\/p>\n
“Hillcrest and the LGBTQ community has been under attack,” said Benjamin Nichols, Executive Director of the Hillcrest Business Association. “We need to say that here in our town, in Hillcrest, this is a safe space where people’s rights and being your true self, your honest self, is most important.”<\/p>\n
The attacks have been felt beyond the local circumstances.<\/p>\n
Kristin Flicking, Executive Director of San Diego Pride said, “It’s really important that this year with everything that’s happening at the federal level, that we really make sure that everyone understands how important it is to come out and experience joy.”<\/p>\n
Flicking said this year’s Pride theme is called “Unbreakable Pride, Unshakeable Power” to address the current political challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n
“Pride did start as an uprising, but it was an uprising against folks who are trying to limit our joy and our expression,” Flicking said. “So it’s really important everyone comes out this year, especially when there’s an intentional effort to silence and erase our community.”<\/p>\n
The rally is also honoring local activists with the Spirit of Stonewall Awards, recognizing those driving change in the community.<\/p>\n
“We have a whole number of award recipients this year. One of the recipients is a group of people, actually \u2014 our community grand marshal is the immigrant community and its defenders, which is really important at this moment with everything that we’re seeing happening in our country,” Flicking said.<\/p>\n
Flicking also mentioned that there were a few new items at Pride this year, including a marketplace at the festival. Pride organizers also noted that parade routes will be different this year due to construction around Hillcrest, so attendees should be prepared for detours. <\/p>\n
Also, security will be tighter, with a clear bag policy being strictly enforced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HILLCREST (KGTV) \u2014 San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community gathered in Hillcrest Friday night to kick off Pride weekend. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,7720,5603,51969,19127,3549,40461,7264,51970,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-74586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-hillcrest","12":"tag-lgbtq","13":"tag-pride-weekend","14":"tag-rally","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-pride","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-stonewall","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114878259120755116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}