Pride month has always been both a celebration and a protest.
With origins in the uprising that followed police raids on the Stonewall Inn nightclub in New York City on June 28, 1969, Pride has historically been more than just rainbow flags, glitter and boas. And for event organizers and members of the queer community in Seattle, this year’s Pride feels newly urgent in the current political environment.
DeAunt’e Damper, LGBTQ+ chair of the Seattle chapter of the NAACP, notes that Pride has always been a forum for protest, and that this month he’s feeling a range of complicated emotions.
“I am feeling fearful but empowered,” Damper said. “I’m feeling hopeful but also down. So I guess you could say: I’m existing.”
This, after a whirlwind of policy changes from the Trump administration directed at trans and LGBTQ+ people: banning trans people from serving in the military; scrubbing references to trans people on government websites; forbidding people from changing gender markers on their passports; proposed funding cuts to suicide prevention programs for LGBTQ+ youth; and eliminating Medicaid coverage for adult gender-affirming care.
Kai Aprill-Tomlin, communications director for the Gender Justice League, which organizes Trans Pride Seattle, set to be held Friday, June 27 in Volunteer Park, said this year’s events are critical. “When all young people see is what the government says about us — policies that erase us, rhetoric that dehumanizes us — it’s easy to lose hope,” Aprill-Tomlin said. “Gathering together in the celebration of our lives is quite literally suicide prevention.”
Adding to the anxiety, in May a fundamentalist Christian group known for its anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric staged a rally in Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill — the heart of the city’s queer community. Seattle police arrested 23 counterprotesters at that event.
“Mayor Harrell said that this is a safe, sanctuary city,” said Damper. “I don’t need those words. I want to hear what you’re doing to make sure people are protected.”
Patti Hearn, director of Seattle Pride, which stages the annual Pride parade Downtown on June 29 and Seattle Pride in the Park, said her organization spends more than $50,000 each year on private security for Pride events.
“There needs to be a balance of making it open and welcoming — we don’t want a big wall or barricade around the event,” Hearn said. “But also wanting to make sure that it’s secure.”
Aprill-Tomlin indicated that Trans Pride is also taking precautions, as it does every year. “We have always taken incredible security measures at Trans Pride Seattle, and we continue to do so with the expectation that our community is always at risk simply for being who we are,” he said. The event focuses on community-led security teams rather than relying on a police presence.
Seattle Pride’s relationship with police is complicated, in part because the event celebrates a pushback against a police raid. As it has for the past three years, the Seattle Pride Parade has extended an invitation to Seattle Police Department officers to participate, but only out of uniform, Hearn said.
“Police officers are permitted to volunteer to march in the parade out of uniform, with other City of Seattle employees, with the expectation that they abide by the event’s no-weapons policy,” a spokesperson for Seattle Pride said in an email.
Organizers are also anxious after a significant drop in funding support from corporations as compared to previous years — a trend that Hearn says isn’t unusual this year. “Almost every pride that I’ve heard about has had some drop in revenue from corporate sponsorship,” Hearn said. She noted that both the San Francisco and New York Pride parades have lost significant corporate sponsors. Seattle Pride announced in April it had a $350,000 budget deficit, and began a community-based fundraising effort.
“I feel like we’ve been able to balance it out a little bit with individual donations, and we’re still working on foundation grants,” Hearn said. The organization has raised about $20,000 since the announcement.
Boeing and Expedia were among the biggest corporate sponsors that did not renew support.
Hearn said her organization didn’t follow up with Boeing after it failed to renew, but did reach out to Expedia to see if the company would instead be a non-named supporter of the Seattle Pride Impact Fund, which provides grants to local organizations that support the LGBTQ+ community. “We didn’t hear from them again until someone else told us that we’d been declined,” she said.
Alaska Airlines returned as the event’s presenting sponsor, donating at least $100,000. Starbucks’ employee affinity group, the Starbucks Pride Network maintained their sponsorship, but Amazon’s queer employee affinity group Glamazon did not.
“With care at our core, we proudly support LGBTQ+ communities and foster inclusive partnerships,” said a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines in an emailed statement. “One of the ways we show that commitment is in our sponsorship of and participation in local Pride parades.”
For Damper, the event is less about demonstrating that LGBTQ+ people can and should be found in every company, government agency and institution and more about helping people in marginalized communities feel safe and supported. “I want to make sure that we’re prioritizing the people who’ve been silenced,” he said. “We can’t move forward until we make sure that Black trans women feel safe, and that we’re also uplifting funding that’s getting cut from HIV organizations like POCAAN.”
One of the primary organizations in the Seattle area that provide resources to queer people of color, POCAAN has been facing a significant decline in funding over the past several years, Damper said. “It means a lot to me, because there was a boy who was addicted to methamphetamine who walked in the door and asked to volunteer — and working there changed his life,” he said. “If I hadn’t walked in those doors, I would not have known that I could exist.” For Aprill-Tomlin, Trans Pride was similarly transformative in helping him realize his trans identity 10 years ago, and was one of the few places he’s seen more than just a few trans role models.
“I resisted letting myself be who I am for a long time,” he said. “I worry about that being the case for trans youth today. I worry about how easy it is for trans youth and our families to lose hope. Spaces like Trans Pride Seattle fill us back up again, readying us for this fight for our lives.”
Hearn said that helping young trans people feel welcome and safe is a key part of Pride programming. “We know that there’s plenty of research about this, that trans youth are vulnerable to all kinds of mental health challenges because the culture they live in tells them that their experience isn’t real,” she said.
She pointed to Pride’s youth internship, youth writing programs and a youth art contest as “giving kids creative space and a place to share their stories and engender some compassion and connection.”
Damper said that this year, more than ever, Pride has to be a political event as well as a celebration of queer joy. “My main goal throughout this time is not dancing in the streets during Pride,” he said. “It is making sure I’m taking actionary steps to uplift leaders and to uplift organizations like the Lavender Rights Project,” a Seattle-based organization providing financial, emotional and legal support to Black trans women. “How are we going to ensure their safety? It seems like we’re just tap-dancing,” Damper said. “That’s going to involve everybody in our communities.”
Correction, June 23, 2025: This story has been updated to clarify that Seattle Pride manages Seattle Pride in the Park, not Seattle PrideFest, and that Amazon’s queer affinity group, Glamazon, revoked their sponsorship of this year’s event.
