Stockton held its 10th Pride event on Oct. 1 at the Yosemite Street Village, hosted and organized by the new San Joaquin Pride Center, Pride Committee members, and volunteers.
Booths lined the street, providing pride goers with the ability to purchase clothing, locally made art, plants, food, drinks, and much more. There were also booths highlighting local organizations available to Stockton and San Joaquin County residents. Attendees included Visit Stockton, the City of Stockton Community Service Department, Community Medical Centers, the Stockton Teachers Association, the San Joaquin Pride Center, and many more.
Many local organizations’ goal of the day was to inform the community about the services they provide. Many pride attendees who stopped by the Planned Parenthood Mar Monte booth were surprised to hear about the expansive services provided by Planned Parenthood and that those services included gender-affirming care like hormone therapy.
“Another reason that we’re here today is to make sure that we’re providing support and we’re providing health care services and information,” said the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Candelaria Vargas.
A theme that could be observed throughout the day was the embrace of the arts and music as a tool to create community. The main stage was occupied by a variety of artists, including Stockton Civic Theater, Apex Martial Arts, Loghan Longoria, Tyler Vernon, Gloomy June, the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus, and more. Eight drag artists performed between the day’s family drag show and Stockton’s premiere drag show at the end of the day.
A local band that graced the stage and gave a performance that made everyone groove was the Two Hip Band. The band consists of five members, one of whom is a University of the Pacific student, and the other four go to our very own Delta College.
“The arts and the queer community, there’s a lot of shared space and interaction. There’s a lot of support from both parties for one another. It has been a very symbiotic relationship for a long time between the arts and people of different sexual orientations and everything like that,” said the Two Hip Band’s saxophonist and Delta College student Nathan Forschen.
The day was filled with positivity and support, and fostered a goal of creating community amongst Stockton’s LGBTQIA+ population.
“We need to do more than just talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion; we actually have to do something, and when we have a community event like this, where we open our doors to community members and businesses and nonprofits, that’s how we’re really putting in the work to build a community where in the future everyone truly feels included in our greater Stockton area,” said Tracy City Council member and deputy district attorney for San Joaquin County Dan Arriola, who served as host for Stockton Pride.
Maintaining an event like Stockton Pride that has been going on for 10 years requires immense amounts of work from large groups of people months in advance. The San Joaquin Pride Center worked on creating social media campaigns and getting the word out to as many people as possible. Groups of volunteers made sure that they were there to provide assistance to make the day run smoothly. Nothing would be possible, however, without the work of the pride committee.
“We have an entire Stockton pride committee that is separate from the San Joaquin Pride Center staff, so huge props to all of the people that are on the pride committee. There’s eight different humans that are a part of that and making that happen. All the vendor team, the family alley, the volunteer team, the decoration team, and them doing that for three months before,” said Michaelwayne Cozzens, lead outreach coordinator for the pride center.
Over the past few years, we have seen an uptake in anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric in online and public spaces, as well as in legislature. Pride events and pride centers work to make sure that queer people feel welcome in their communities, especially in times when finding support can feel difficult.
“It’s super important that an organization or community across San Joaquin County are supporting the LGBTQ community, especially because we’ve generally been a more conservative area. Having grown up here in this region, I grew up in Tracy as well, I think seeing places like Lodi, Tracy, Stockton having prides makes me feel like I belong in this community, in this region, that I don’t have to leave where I grew up, where I feel a sense of belonging to find that queer acceptance,” said Tracy political candidate William Muetzenberg.
Pride is not limited to one day or even one month, pride is a year-round celebration. If you are a queer person looking for community, support and resources at Delta College or in the Stockton area, reach out to the San Joaquin Delta College Pride Center (SJDCPC) or the new San Joaquin County Pride Center (SJPC) for information.
