KQED's Pride Radio Special

This Sunday, thousands of Bay Area residents will hit the streets as part of San Francisco’s annual Pride parade, one of the largest and longest running pride celebrations in the nation. In honor of Pride events happening throughout the Bay Area, KQED is digging into the history of the city’s Pride festivities and focusing on local efforts to celebrate and protect LGBTQ rights in the Bay Area.

Tune in to our Pride radio special on Sunday morning to hear from experts, local leaders and community members about what makes this year’s Pride celebrations especially important.

Jump To: 

• Elders speak: ‘It wasn’t a parade, it was a march’
• Why California is considering tossing out its state-funded travel ban
• Queer skaters of Rockridge
• San Francisco’s first-ever drag laureate
• Paul Aguilar: Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride
• The tension around corporate sponsorship
• The 10th anniversary of the end of Proposition 8 in California
• Drag King story time

Elders speak: ‘It wasn’t a parade, it was a march’

The voices of two elder queer people and their memories of early Pride events, how the event has changed over the years, and how they understand the value of the parade today.

In the summer of 1970, gay activists commemorating the uprising at Stonewall in New York, marched down San Francisco’s Polk Street. There wasn’t really a planned route and no one had a permit.

“I heard about a march. And it’s very important to distinguish it wasn’t a parade, it was a march,” said former state Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who was in his 30s at the time. He recalls how he had a little sign that said “gay teacher,” and they walked down the street with hardly anybody on the sidewalk.

Gwen Craigg, former president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, was in her twenties and had recently moved from Atlanta. Throughout the 1970s participation in the march grew, and in 1973 an estimated 42,000 people took part. Two years later that number almost doubled, and this year the City of San Francisco is expecting half a million people to participate in today’s Pride festivities.

Why California is considering tossing out its state-funded travel ban

At a time when nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ+ laws are being considered in state legislatures nationwide, California is considering doing away with its nearly seven-year-old ban on state-funded travel to states that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.

Senator Toni Atkins introduced a bill in March proposing to undo that travel ban and replace it with something called the Bridge Project. Senator Atkins is openly lesbian and grew up in rural Virginia. She remembers what it was like growing up as a young person in a place that was hostile to gay and lesbian people. She proposes that rescinding this travel ban will enable people who support LGBTQ rights to go to these places and promote a positive message of inclusion. She adds that this would be more effective than trying to punish these states.

Queer skaters of Rockridge

In the last two years, 22 states in the U.S. have passed legislation banning transgender students from participating in a sports team aligned with their gender identity. But here in the Bay Area, a community of queer and transgender people are using skateboarding as a form of queer expression. “It’s kind of the perfect place because you have this queer mecca and this skate mecca,” said Jackie Cotteril, a skater from Southern California who now lives and skates in Berkeley.

What was once a male-dominated sport has outgrown the gender binary in the Bay Area. Oakland-based skate collective Unity Skateboards hosts queer and trans skate meetups, while making skateboards that depict gay love.

Cotteril says the queer skate community she found when she moved here helped get her back into skating.

San Francisco’s first-ever drag laureate

San Francisco made history last month by naming its first-ever drag laureate,  D’arcy Drollinger, who has been doing drag shows since the 1990’s. As drag laureate of San Francisco — not only the first title of its kind in the city, but also the nation — Drollinger says he’ll serve as an ambassador for local drag artists and the city’s nightlife.

San Francisco’s drag scene is one that Drollinger, who was born here, has developed a deep affection for since returning to the city in 2011, because of how local artists have changed the face of drag. Drollinger is also owner and artistic director of OASIS, an internationally acclaimed drag nightclub and cabaret that’s home to a strong, inclusive community, which, during the height of the pandemic, organized services like Meals on Heels, a drag meal delivery service for those in need.

Paul Aguilar: Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride

Paul Aguilar is the Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal in this years Pride Parade. In this interview, he shares his early memories of Pride, his experience of being HIV+, of how he copes with the trauma of losing friends to the disease.

Aguilar has been going to Pride in San Francisco for decades and can still remember his first back in 1976. He delivered newspapers back then, and after he finished his shift he rode his bike all the way down to Golden Gate Park, where the march used to end.

“There was one feeling. One unmistakable feeling. And that was the feeling of acceptance. This was my tribe. This is what I’ve been looking for,” he said. “These were my people. It was a life-changing moment for me.”

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal recognition is in honor of his years of advocating for people living with HIV and AIDS.

The tension around corporate sponsorship

After an ad for Bud Light featuring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney caused a backlash that led to a dip in sales, the company put two marketing executives on leave. Then, Target faced its own boycott over a Pride product line. All this has had SF Pride and similar organizations thinking about the role of corporate sponsors.

Organizers of the parade say they’re facing mounting costs, so they’ve continued to draw on financial support from corporate sponsors. The practice isn’t new, but there’s a renewed debate over the role of corporate sponsors, which have been facing heavy criticism from both conservatives and the LGBTQ community.

“We’re always trying to make sure we survive to provide a great weekend for the city, but also to do the right thing. And that’s quite a difficult position sometimes,” said Suzanne Ford, Executive Director of SF Pride. She says costs for events have gone up 40 percent post-pandemic – to about $4 million – and more than half of their funding is generated by corporate contributions.

The 10th anniversary of the end of Proposition 8 in California

June 26th is the 10^th anniversary of the day same-sex marriages were effectively legalized in California. The battle to overturn Proposition 8, a voter-approved measure which banned same-sex marriages in the state in 2008, was the subject of a long legal battle.

Shortly after it went into effect, two same-sex couples sued to block the law, in a battle that ultimately ended at the U.S. Supreme Court. Its reversal paved the way for marriage equality in the country, but the trial was contentious, and included intimate testimony from the couples.

We hear from the two same-sex couples who challenged Proposition 8 in the courts, as they reflect on the legacy of that trial.

Drag King story time

Drag story hours — where drag performers read children’s books to families at libraries and bookstores — started in San Francisco in 2015 and grew into a global phenomenon. Performers say they hope to show children a world where everyone can be themselves. But in recent months, drag story hours in the Bay Area have been targeted by anti-LGBTQ protestors.

This story, Worm Loves Worm, written by JJ Austrian and illustrated by Mike Curto, is performed by Drag King VERA! co-director of Drag Story Hour Bay Area.

This weekend radio special was produced by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, Rachael Vasquez, and Annelise Finney. This segment was mixed by Jim Bennett and Chris Beale. Digital production by Lakshmi Sarah and Attila Pelit.