In 2022, trans youth were the community grand marshal at the Pride Parade after facing extreme media scrutiny and unprecedented legislative attacks. This year’s grand marshal acknowledges that the adults who risked their necks to defend trans youth during that time were often staff at libraries and schools.
“To be recognized for doing that emotional labor is pretty awesome,” said Maria Schembri, program manager at San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) who will be marching at the front of the parade with LGBTQ+ and allied educators and library workers. “There was a time period, about two years, that many of us were harassed on a regular basis just for being affirming.”
For queer educators, harassment from parents can carry a personal toll. Since the Red Scare and then Anita Bryant, LGBTQ+ educators have been the targets of purges, even in California with the failed Briggs Initiative in 1978. In modern times, Schembri said, “there are people that spin that and call people that use representation in their curriculum as pedophiles and groomers, because they are saying the words transgender or lesbian or gay or queer.”
Library workers have faced similar harassment amid campaigns to ban books dealing with race and LGBTQ+ topics. Ady Huertas, program manager of Youth, Family & Equity Services at the San Diego Public Library, tries to combat book bans with information on the library’s mission. “At the core of libraries and library services is intellectual freedom,” she said.
Staff members formed a committee 10 years ago to plan a contingent for the Pride Parade that expanded into the library having its own area in the festival. Plus, the committee added a year-round focus on equity for LGBTQ+ patrons with a teen book club, drag queen story hours and Pride displays.
“Here we are, 10 years later, and it started with our marching,” Huertas said.
This did not occur without pushback though. In 2019, a drag queen story time in Chula Vista had protesters. While drag queens still volunteer to read picture books to children, they are only sent to libraries in central San Diego and advertising is more circumspect. Still, at a University Heights branch library, the number of families overflowed the story area to hear from Friidae on June 25, 2024.
Plus, books have been challenged each year and parents at Coronado Library in 2023 demanded LGBTQ+ books be shelved in areas for adults, even picture books aimed at toddlers. Also last year, a Pride display was purposefully ruined at the Rancho Peñasquitos Library.
With the focus now on the election rather than books and curriculum, no reports of Pride displays being destroyed have occurred this year in San Diego. In fact, the library debuted a new exhibit of historic photographs from Pride. San Diego Pride, Lambda Archives and San Diego Public Library received a grant from California State Library to go through Pride’s disorganized archives of digital photos, add metadata and research the people photographed. Lambda archivist Dana Wiegand went through 10,000 photos, eventually adding metadata and historic information to 3,000 photos. Afterwards, the library provided public access to the photos online and through the touring exhibit of select photos.
“It feels amazing that two and a half years of work is finally available to the public,” Wiegand said. “It is so exciting to have our work on display in our local libraries.”
Lambda Archives’ managing director Nicole Verdes gave a lecture on the project at the photos’ debut at the Mission Hills-Hillcrest Knox Library on June 24. “We’re there to make sure that history is preserved and shared out and made available and accessible to the public, so that those narratives and that history doesn’t get erased,” they said.
It was not planned that the project’s completion coincided with Pride’s 50th anniversary or librarians being community grand marshals. This year also happens to be the fifth time the library released a limited edition Pride card designed by a community member. Huertas said, “It’s a creative way for us to engage with community, and for creative folks from community to submit their design.”
Ocean Beach designer Jenn David Connolly won this year’s contest with a pink background of bricks to represent Stonewall and shadows of people waving arms – in protest or celebration. Foremost is “Pride” in rainbow shadowed letters with “San Diego 1974-2024” and “Celebrating 50 Years of Marches” in black script. Her winning design was unveiled on a giant printed version after Verdes’ presentation. “I love seeing my designs in other forms,” Connolly enthused while holding the giant library card.
At the library event, Verdes said, “The work that we do at Lambda Archives or the library or even Pride’s role in this, too, is important exactly because there are efforts to ban books, to prevent LGBTQ+ curriculum being shared in schools.” The backlash library workers, teachers and activists have endured over the last few years makes leading the parade especially sweet – and a reminder of their essential role for LGBTQ+ youth.
