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FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - In what LGBTQ+ advocates picture arsenic a captious clip to basal successful solidarity with the community, Fresno City College kicked disconnected Pride Month by raising a Pride emblem Monday morning.
Advocates highlighted the value of Fresno City College (FCC) serving arsenic a harmless abstraction amid governmental turmoil regarding LGBTQ+ issues.
"In a region wherever determination are those that marque a amusement of pretending to attraction astir our younker by bashing, abusing, berating and forcefully outing queer and trans children, Fresno City College, by offering that harmless abstraction by starring with emotion and acceptance for all— this is simply a blessing," said Community Link committee subordinate Tracy Cisneros.
Just 5 years ago, FCC Rainbow Alliance President Nickolas Valencia-Lucio says the Pride emblem was raised connected field arsenic a awesome of love, visibility and resilience. This year, helium says the emblem was raised not conscionable successful celebration, but successful defiance of hatred and successful solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.
"We are surviving successful a clip of heavy governmental polarization. Across the country, LGBTQ+ rights, particularly those of our trans siblings, are nether relentless attack," said Valencia-Lucio. "Laws are being passed that portion distant wellness care, dignity and adjacent the close to simply beryllium safely successful nationalist spaces."
And portion times whitethorn consciousness tumultuous for the LGBTQ+ community, Cisneros, who is besides a unpaid coordinator for Fresno's Pride, explains however the past of the parade successful Fresno showcases that determination is resilience and perseverance done unity.
"From a fistful of spectacularly decorated buying carts, to implicit 100 gorgeous floats, vehicles and ample walking groups going down Olive Avenue with implicit 10,000 radical cheering from the sidewalk," she said. "We've gone from battling the KKK successful the thoroughfare to present fielding requests from authorities and section leaders and politicians wanting to enactment successful our parade."
Reigning monarchs of the Imperial Dove Court de Fresno (IDCF), 1 of the longest-standing LGBTQ+ organizations successful the valley, expressed however simply existing proudly moves the assemblage forward.
"In a clip wherever anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and authorities are connected a emergence crossed the country, visibility becomes not conscionable important, it becomes revolutionary. Our beingness successful nationalist spaces is simply a signifier of resistance, our joyousness is simply a signifier of protest. Our unity is our strength," Empress 52 Ivanna Strange expressed.
"We volition not shrink. We volition not hide. We volition proceed to emergence with pridefulness and with resilience and with unwavering committedness to justness for each members of our LGBT community."
Saturday volition people the 35th Annual Fresno Rainbow Pride Parade and Festival, acceptable to instrumentality spot done Tower District and extremity astatine FCC. This year's taxable is "Throwback to Stonewall."
"For some, it's the precise archetypal clip they volition get to acquisition what it is to find a welcoming and affirming space. Some volition travel that time from smaller, much agrarian communities wherever they don't situation to beryllium seen and find immeasurable joyousness successful the state to beryllium their authentic self," said Cisneros.
To find retired much accusation regarding this year's Fresno Pride, click here.
