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San Francisco Chronicle​

‘We've always known how to turn to joy': Photos from S.F. Pride

In photographing last weekend's Pride events, I wanted to look beyond the parade and corporate celebrations, to capture the intimate and joyful moments of our queer community. I walked all over the city, from the Trans and Dyke marches to the Pride run in Golden Gate Park, to the cafés in the Castro. I met longtime queer rights activists who have lived in San Francisco for decades, and others who came recently seeking belonging. And at a time when queer and trans rights in particular are under attack, I was reminded that our fight is far from over. I asked people how they were feeling going into this year's Pride, and what I heard most was a desire to celebrate and come together. And it was absolutely a celebration. Every corner of the city was filled with friends and lovers. From Ocean Beach to Dolores Park, the queer joy radiating from San Francisco felt like a protest in itself, a bold, beautiful act of resistance. Pride may last a month, but we will continue using joy as our strongest form of protest year-round. 'This Pride means celebrating together, being joyful together, and most importantly feeling safe together. They love that we can all spend Pride with one another whether we are friends, partners, or strangers. We are all part of the same community.' — Aurora Luque 'We need to fight for what is right. Especially trans and women's rights getting hit on and also our democracy is getting taken away from us and our freedoms are getting taken away from us. I'm here to support the gay community and my trans brothers and sisters. We're all a family in the gay community. We all have to stick together and fight together.' — Jim Martinez 'There's a lot going on, so I'm really leaning into being fun and having fun. And also like, bad things happen to people and you can choose how you react to it. That's really all we have the power to do and to sort of pushed back against f—ed up things without letting it turn us f—ed up. And I think that's the test right now. Either we lose our humanity in this moment or we double down and lean into our joy.' — Star Amerasu 'Cause I came out as trans as a kid, you know you're being raised with a lot of messaging and imagery that you're not protected by certain parties and so you have to find hope from community and hope from within. We've always known how to turn to joy as a community and we will continue to do so.' — Eden Chaloemtiarana 'The Trans March is always like a really beautiful space and feels really powerful and really good to be around other trans people. I will say, though, there's definitely, like a heaviness and then especially, like seeing all the vans filled with cops. It was pretty triggering and, like. usually there's not that much of a cop's like, presence at the Trans March. So with all the ICE raids and everything like that, it definitely feels like. you know, targeted. And they pick June to do all this stuff too, in particular. And we're supposed to be a sanctuary city, you know. It's rough.' — Camilo 'I mean, me going into the weekend, I just want to have fun. I just want to party, you know. It's Pride weekend and yeah. And I haven't been out for like Pride in a couple years now. So I just kind of want to do something different this year. I don't really go out anymore, so I want to really go out for the summer.' — Kevin Jones 'Given the current state of our political system, I think, like when I attended like No Kings (protest), it's just a lot, it's just like motivating. Like it's so easy to like look at all the news that happens literally every single day and it's like, this is f—ing sucks. And then you come out to Pride and you come out to like a big protest or something and it just re-motivates you to keep going.' — Richie Machado