SF Pride faces financial difficulties after losing 5 corporate sponsors
Suzanne Ford, its executive director, said she's looking for other companies and people to sponsor the annual pride celebration, concerned that more sponsors may pull out.
Pride weekend is a highly anticipated annual celebration in San Francisco.
"I like to watch the parade. Often do things with friends. Come here to the Castro and stroll around," said Ryan Jones, a San Francisco resident and co-owner of Hot Cookie, a popular shop in the Castro.
But SF Pride said five corporate sponsors have pulled out after years of supporting the annual celebration.
They include Comcast, Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, an alcoholic beverage company that makes many popular brands, including Johnny Walker and Guinness, and La Crema, a wine company owned by Jackson Family Wines. "I'm very concerned. Obviously, there's pressure from the federal government," Ford said all the companies that withdrew their support cited a lack of funds.
Ford suspected the Trump Administration's policy against diversity, equity and inclusion programs played a role.
"The tone has changed in this country. Businesses already hedge their bets, and I think people who, this isn't their hard core value of their corporation, maybe they're rethinking their investment," said Ford.
She said the loss of five corporate sponsorships adds up to $300,000 out of the $1.2 million she still needs to raise. "We gays, we know how to survive. We'll figure out a way to maintain our community through all of this, including financial hardships for things like pride," Jones said.
Ford said this year's Pride festivities will go on as planned, but moving forward, what the pride celebration will entail is uncertain. And small businesses that now benefit may be impacted.
"We're going to have to be creative and adapt, and find new ways of doing things with less, and doing it just as well. That's going to be a challenge for sure," said Jones.
Ford said the city is a magical place for the LGBTQ community, and that it's important to maintain that luster.
"The whole world will be watching to see if San Francisco still has those values. That they can come here and live their authentic lives," said Ford.
KTVU reached out to the companies that had withdrawn their financial support but had not heard back in time for this report.
Amber Lee is a reporter with KTVU. Email Amber at Amber.Lee@Fox.com or text/leave message at 510-599-3922. Follow her on Facebook @AmberKTVU, Instagram @AmberKTVU or Twitter @AmberKTVU
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hegseth announces new name of US navy ship that honored gay rights icon Harvey Milk
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has formally announced that the US navy supply vessel named in honor of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk is to be renamed after Oscar V Peterson, a chief petty officer who received the congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the Battle of the Coral Sea in the second world war. 'We are taking the politics out of ship naming,' Hegseth announced on Friday on X. In an accompanying video-statement, Hegseth added: 'We are not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we are renaming the ship after a congressional Medal of Honor recipient.' 'People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in,' Hegseth added. The move comes amid a widespread backlash against LGBTQ+ rights and issues in the US under the Trump administration, ranging from banning books associated with LGBTQ+ causes to reducing the rights of transgender people. Related: Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: 'Our joy is resistance' The oil-supply vessel had been named after the San Francisco gay rights activist, who was murdered in 1978 after serving as a city supervisor, dubbing himself the 'Mayor of Castro Street'. He had served in the navy as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship but resigned with an 'other than honorable' discharge rather than be court-martialed for homosexuality. Peterson served on the USS Neosho, a ship that was heavily damaged by Japanese dive bombers on 7 May 1942, during the Battle of the Coral Sea. In one bombing raid, Peterson and members of the repair party he led were severely wounded. But despite his injuries, he managed to close four steam line valves, suffering third-degree burns to his face, shoulders, arms and hands in the process. But by closing the bulkhead valves, Peterson isolated the steam to the engine room and helped keep the ship operational. In an announcement that appeared timed for the start of Pride month, Hegseth announced that Milk's name was to be stripped from ship in early June. It had been named after the gay icon in 2016 by then-navy secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights. The move to strip Milk's name from the ship triggered a backlash from the activist's friends when it was first reported. 'Yes, this is cruel and petty and stupid, and yes, it's an insult to my community,' Cleve Jones, Milk's close friend and an LGBTQ+ activist, previously told the Associated Press. 'I would be willing to wager a considerable sum that American families sitting around that proverbial kitchen table this evening are not going to be talking about how much safer they feel now that Harvey's name is going to be taken off that ship,' he added to the news agency. Milk's nephew, Stuart Milk, told the AP that renaming the ship would become 'a rallying cry not just for our community but for all minority communities'. He added: 'I don't think he'd be surprised, but he'd be calling on us to remain vigilant, to stay active.' Elected officials, including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California's governor, Gavin Newsom, described the change as an attempt to erase the contributions of LGBTQ+ people and an insult to fundamental American values of honoring veterans. 'The right's cancel culture is at it again. A cowardly act from a man desperate to distract us from his inability to lead the Pentagon,' Newsom said of Hegseth on the social media platform X.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Harvey would say, we're on the brink': why conservatives are coming for a gay rights hero
As San Francisco's pride festivities came to a close last week, a cloud hung over the otherwise joyful celebrations as the city's LGBTQ+ community learned that the US government had stripped a naval ship of its name honoring the gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk. Donald Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, claimed the action showed the administration's commitment to 'taking the politics' out of military naming conventions. San Francisco's queer community saw things differently. For many, the move was yet another example of Trump taking a swipe at progressive values. To others, the decision to remove Milk's name from the frigate represented something more sinister: an intention, on the part of an emboldened administration, to take the LGBTQ+ community out of public view and to strike their accomplishments from the historical record. It's blatant malice. They want to erase us and eradicate our history like we don't exist Eric Berchtold 'On its own, it is not the most significant offense that we've witnessed in the past six months,' said Marc Stein, a professor of history at San Francisco State University who researches sexuality and politics. 'But when combined with so many other things, it sends a powerful message.' Hegseth's announcement is the latest attack on Milk's legacy from conservatives in California and on the national stage. In 2023, the southern California city of Temecula made news when its school board attempted to remove references to Milk from elementary school textbooks. Before that, it was revealed that Tucker Carlson, while a college student, had apparently been connected to a society celebrating Milk's murderer. Related: 'Accelerated censorship': advocates criticize US supreme court ruling on LGBTQ+ books Since Trump took office, the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights and visibility has only accelerated, from a directive to purge the military of transgender service members, to a supreme court decision allowing K-12 students to opt out of reading materials with LGBTQ+ themes. Taken together, LGBTQ+ advocates and community members fear that much of the progress made to secure their rights since Milk's assassination in 1978 is in peril. 'The renaming of the ship is part of a broader pattern wherein the Trump administration and its allies are trying to roll back the advances of the last several decades,' said Stein. At the Cinch Saloon, a historic gay bar in San Francisco's Castro district, June's Pride month celebrations were held against a backdrop of conversations about the fate of the community. Bartender Eric Berchtold expressed fear that the administration is working up to rescind the right to same-sex marriage. 'It's blatant malice,' Berchtold said. 'They want to erase us and eradicate our history like we don't exist.' Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, said that fears of rolling back progress have been felt most acutely by older members of the community who were part of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s. Among those affected people are Cleve Jones, an activist and friend of Milk's who worked in Milk's office when he was city supervisor. 'I can remember when we were criminalized, when we were routinely beaten and fired, when you could not have a job if you were known to be gay,' said Jones. When Milk was elected as city supervisor in 1977, he was the country's first openly gay politician. Two decades prior, he had been forced to resign from the navy due to his sexuality. That's why publicly displaying Milk's name on a military vessel represents much more than a public gesture, explained Craig Loftin, professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton and a scholar of LGBTQ+ history. 'In the big-picture history of LGBTQ people, the quest for public visibility and recognition is at the core and center of that narrative,' he said. '[Milk] was a leader in this idea of not hiding in the shadows.' That isn't to say that the quest for gay liberation has been linear. While the gay liberation movement made enormous strides on the fronts of decriminalization and visibility in the 1960s and 70s, the rise of the religious right as a powerful political bloc in the 80s paused progress. That coincided with the onset of the Aids pandemic, which devastated gay communities across the country – nowhere more acutely than in San Francisco. In response to silence on the part of the federal government and the Reagan administration, a new wave of activism was spurred that demanded research into treatment and condemned homophobic discrimination. 'It's waxed and waned,' said Loftin. 'It took several years before we had activist groups like Aact Up channeling their rage in a strategic, focused way that yielded significant results and moved gay culture further than where it had been,' Loftin said. In the decades that followed, the community saw same-sex marriage legalized, the military's 'Don't ask don't tell' policy repealed, and, most recently, a surge of visibility for trans Americans. 'There is a pendulum quality to a lot of history, but especially LGBT history.' Knowing this, Loftin is hopeful that the community will come together and fight back with vigor. 'My optimistic thought is that because they're hitting us so hard and so fast, the pendulum will swing back the other direction, hopefully harder and faster,' he said. '[Trump] is awakening a dragon.' Berchtold, the Cinch Saloon bartender, said he saw a lot more activism among patrons today than he did when he started working at the bar 22 years ago. Jones is more fearful. To him, there is a gulf between an older generation that remembers the traumas of past decades, and a younger cohort that takes the advances for granted. 'Younger ones never watched everyone they knew die,' said Jones. 'I carry those memories with me as I interact daily with young people who are completely oblivious to that reality.' To Stein and others, what is most jarring about the renaming of USNS Harvey Milk is that it lifts the veil on which groups the administration plans to target. Until now, policy decisions have primarily focused on restricting the rights of trans Americans – which advocates say has had the effect of making cisgender members of the LGBTQ+ community complacent. 'It is a lie that the administration is only going after trans people,' said Stein. 'They are especially targeting trans people … but [cis] gay and lesbian people should not feel like they are going to be safe from what's happening.' Jones echoed: 'There is a significant number of gay and lesbian men and women who may think this is going to stop with trans people. That's just foolishness.' Advocates and scholars also see attacks on the LGBTQ+ community as connected to the administration's larger ambitions to curb civil liberties, including those of women and immigrants. 'There is going to be great variation depending on … where you live,' said Stein, drawing a thread between disparities in access to gender-affirming care, abortion rights and immigrant protections. 'Those of us who are in San Francisco and California are protected in some respects from the worst of what's going on, but we also live in a nation with a powerful federal government. 'Everything is very fragile at this moment,' added Ford. 'You can't take for granted that they're not going to try to take your rights.' Jones says that if he were alive today, Harvey Milk would agree. A Jewish American who came of age during the second world war, he would have seen the government's actions as indicative of an unhealthy democracy and sounded the alarm. 'He would say, 'Watch out. We are on the brink. It is happening again. It is unfolding all around us.''
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
An Iowa law rolling back trans civil rights protections in the state has taken effect. Here's what to know
An Iowa law removing gender identity as a protected class from the state's civil rights code took effect Tuesday, the first action of its kind in the United States. The new rollback of protections is the latest attack on trans people in the US and part of a broader movement across conservative-led states working to restrict LGBTQ rights. GOP Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the Republican-backed measure earlier this year, saying it 'safeguards the rights of women and girls.' But advocates worry about what they call the dangerous, far-reaching consequences for the trans community in the absence of state legal protections. 'It's really a dark moment in our history,' said Democratic Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, Iowa's first openly transgender lawmaker. 'Our government in the state of Iowa has been reducing rights across the board this past decade.' The new law marks the end to an 18-year legacy of civil rights protection for trans people in Iowa – a stark departure from the state's history of inclusive gender policies. 'The fundamental fact is, we were freer 10 years ago than we are today,' Wichtendahl said. While there are still federal and other anti-discrimination protections in place, President Donald Trump and conservative allies continue to take steps to chip away at trans rights since he returned to office. A state's civil rights code safeguards people from discrimination, often based on characteristics like religion, race and, in many cases, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. Gender identity is no longer on the list of protected classes in Iowa. Iowa's new law also attempts to redefine gender as a synonym for biological sex, a shift that disregards contemporary medical and psychological understandings of gender identity. Under the law, transgender people are barred from correcting their gender marker on birth certificates, so their identifying documentation will show the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender and nonbinary people in Iowa now face increased legal uncertainty, experts say. 'This isn't some nebulous law that won't really impact people,' said Max Mowitz, the executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa. Without state civil rights protections, individuals who are fired, denied housing or refused medical treatment based on their gender identity have a narrower path to legal recourse. 'Folks would be able to discriminate against us if (we) were trying to get a hotel room, or go to a coffee shop, or even open a line of credit,' he said. Having identifying documents with gender markers that don't appear to match how a person is presenting themself could foster an uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, situation for people who are forced to out themselves as trans to strangers. As a trans Iowan, Mowitz said he's been patted down by TSA because 'something was on my driver's license that didn't look the way that they thought it should.' Naomi Goldberg, executive director of the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank providing resources to the LGBTQ community, said trans and nonbinary people will have a hard time going about daily life because of the new law. It will also increase the already high risk of harassment and violence for trans Americans, Goldberg added. More than a dozen states, mostly conservative, have never added gender identity as a protected class to their civil rights laws, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project. Meanwhile, 31 states prohibit some form of discrimination against people based on their gender identity. And bills in those states have not moved to strike gender identity from their civil rights statutes, Goldberg said. But protections for LGBTQ people vary greatly by state. In Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking 88 bills it says are anti-LGBTQ that have been introduced during the 2025 legislative session — more than any other state. By contrast, the ACLU is tracking zero in Vermont. At the federal level, new legislation and lawsuits targeting trans people have increased across the US. The Supreme Court could agree this week to hear arguments in the backlog of cases dealing with trans issues — putting transgender rights front and center for a second year in a row. The high court handed conservative states a win this Pride Month when it upheld Tennessee's ban on some medical treatments for transgender minors. Trump, who campaigned on ending 'transgender lunacy,' has taken steps to dismantle the Biden administration's efforts to be more inclusive of Americans' gender identification. He has signed a flurry of executive orders targeting trans people — including declaring there are only two genders, banning transgender women from participating in most women's sports, and barring transgender service members from serving in the military. Trump earlier this year pushed Iowa to follow his lead from the orders and pass the bill to 'remove Radical Gender Ideology from their Laws.' But trans people just want politicians to allow them to live freely, said Wichtendahl, the Iowa lawmaker. 'The ability to live our lives and be treated equally under the law and rights and dignity, to not have the government be this pernicious voice dictating who we are every step of the way,' Wichtendahl said, 'that's all we've ever asked for.'
