Opinion: Knowing the history of San Diego Pride helps us make sense of who we are as a community – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Verdes (she/they) is a queer, nonbinary dyke. She is the board president of Lambda Archives of San Diego and lives in Normal Heights.

The significance of knowing our history as queer people is that the past helps us to make sense of the present and who we are as a community. We should expect, and welcome, that people with different lived experiences dont always see the past the same way. We all use history to make meaning of our sense of identity and the role that our lives and actions play in our collective history. Its important to recognize the difference between memory and history. Memory is something that we own. History is something to be interpreted (and reinterpreted) as time goes on.

Many recognize the Stonewall Uprising, for example, as the start of our modern LGBTQ+ movement. The Stonewall Uprising occurred in response to state-sanctioned violence where the queer community fought back against police raids at the Stonewall Inn in New York City over five days in June 1969. Although it was clearly a significant historical event, there are many other well-documented events where similar raids and subsequent riots took place, thereby quashing the narrative that Stonewall was the genesis of the modern LGBTQ+ movement. Chief among these other incidents are the Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, 1955; the Coopers Do-Nuts Raid, Los Angeles, 1959; the Black Nite Brawl, Milwaukee, 1961; the Comptons Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, 1966; and the Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, 1967.

In June 1970, gay rights activists marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising with a march on Central Park the first LGBT Pride parade. Similar events began to develop and continue throughout the world to this day. In San Diego, our first permitted Pride did not occur until 1975, but the local gay rights movement had experienced a boost in momentum in the years leading up to what would eventually become our annual Pride parade and festival. Locally, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was started by Jess Jessop, widely known as one of the key figures in the fight for our modern LGBTQ+ movement. Jessop, who was a student at San Diego State University at the time, started the San Diego GLF to explicitly serve gay students.

The GLFs focus expanded and, in 1973, it formed the Gay Information Center hotline, which would eventually become the San Diego LGBTQ Community Center. The following year, the center held a Stonewall Anniversary yard sale and potluck in an effort to fundraise for the fledgling LGBTQ center. This event is the backdrop of one of the most contentious aspects of our local history surrounding Pride, with some arguing that there was a spontaneous march in 1974 that many recognize as the first Pride in San Diego while others insist that the first Pride technically occurred (with the proper permits) in 1975.

Before Pride became its own nonprofit and had a board of directors, ad hoc committees would meet to plan Pride parades and rallies and eventually added a festival. Thanks to the efforts of Christine Kehoe, Neil Good and other community members, San Diego Pride hired its first ever executive director, which then led to Pride becoming its own nonprofit in 1994. Like any other worthwhile effort, it took community muscle and organizing for the organization and our movement to become what it is today.

The heated disagreement that often happens with regard to our local history is significant because it demonstrates how important it is for all of us to solidify our place within the narrative that becomes our shared history. The point is not to discredit the advances made during the Stonewall Uprising or to discredit those who claim to have marched in the first San Diego Pride March in 1974. The point is to recognize and celebrate that our queer movement, both locally, nationally and globally is, and has always been, made up of the efforts of many.

We are all a part of the fabric that makes up our collective history. This includes every memory weaved together every year during Pride. It includes the way that leather daddies, dykes on bikes and the pansexual community march alongside each other during the parade. It includes the way that our elders and transgender youth coexist at the festival. Pride is made up of all of our efforts, big and small, and although our history is shared, our individual memories at each and every Pride are ours to keep and carry with us.

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Opinion: Knowing the history of San Diego Pride helps us make sense of who we are as a community - The San Diego Union-Tribune