Celebrate and Demonstrate: Carrying the Pride Banner into 2018

2017 will go down in history as a banner year for Boston Pride and the Pride Movement in the United States.

Our local celebration experienced unprecedented growth, both in the number of events held during Pride Week, and in total attendance. Animated by a galvanized community demonstrating Pride and solidarity against the hostile policies of the newly installed administration, participation in the Boston Pride Parade exploded: 331 groups came out (a 31 percent increase from 2016) with 45,000+ members marching in the streets of Boston before an audience of over half a million people. Combined with increased attendance at the Festival and Concert at City Hall Plaza, a growing social media following, and ever-expanding national and international readership for the Boston Pride Guide, Boston Pride directly reached, for the first time, over one million people in our community. In addition, thanks to television, print, and online coverage by media outlets, in particular our premier media partner NBC 10 Boston and its sister stations Telemundo and NECN, over five million people were exposed to Boston Pride and our programs – a milestone for queer visibility.

The 2018 theme for the Boston Pride celebration, Rainbow Resistance, is a rallying cry for every segment of our community to unite in resistance against the oppressive and regressive politics of the current government and the systemic threats to communities of color and trans people across the country and here in Massachusetts, including the potential repeal of our trans antidiscrimination legislation. The theme resonates with the long-standing dual identity and role of Pride in our community. Since its very first years in the 1970s, Pride in Boston has been a space to celebrate our collective victories, won through hard-fought legislative and civic resistance; and it has equally been a platform to raise awareness and inspire action on social and political issues that still affect our community.

In this spirit, Boston Pride continues to innovate and support

social justice programming. This year, 10 percent of our corporate sponsorship revenue will be earmarked for the 2019 Boston Pride Community Fund, to provide financial support to even more grassroots organizations in our community (see page 74). During the 2018 Boston Pride Parade, a special commemorative contingent in the leading section of the Parade will honor trans people whom we have lost this year to violence and suicide (see page 38). As of the writing of this letter, eight transgender people have already been murdered in 2018. We remember them and we #SayTheir- Names: Amia Tyrae Berryman, Zakaria Fry, Viccky Gutierrez, Tonya Harvey, Phylicia Mitchell, Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, Celine Walker, and Sasha Wall. In an effort to improve the visibility of queer athletes and to combat the welldocumented homo- and transphobia in athletics, Boston Pride has enhanced our partnerships with professional and nonprofit sports organizations in our region, by formally adding a Pride Sports program to our structure (see page 28). The mandate of this new program is to create spaces and opportunities to foster visibility and respect for athletes in our community, at both the professional and amateur levels.

Boston Pride is an all-volunteer organization: every event and every program is produced by community members who donate their time, skills, and personal resources to Pride each and every year. We thank our devoted event and operations leaders on the Boston Pride Committee for their hard work and their commitment to guarantee that Pride continues to happen in our city. Similarly, we commend our Pride volunteers for their dedication to ensuring the success of Boston Pride events. Finally, we thank our loyal partners for providing the financial resources essential to fulfilling our mission.

In closing, on behalf of everyone at Boston Pride, we thank our #WickedProud community for coming out and supporting our events each year. We wish you a wonderful 2018 Pride Week!

Sylvain Bruni

President

Linda DeMarco

Vice President

Tina Rosado

Board Member

Martha Plaza

Clerk

Marco Torres

Board Member