‘Too straight, white and corporate’

This is why some are skipping San Francisco’s pride parade.

San Francisco resident Katy Birnbaum is eager to gather with other queer people on Pride weekend, especially after such a violent attack against LGBT people in Orlando. But when roughly a million people pack into downtown on Sunday for one of the largest, most high-profile Pride parades in the world, Birnbaum won’t be standing in the crowd.

“It just feels like a big Miller Lite tent,” said Birnbaum, 31. “With the corporate floats … it’s co-opting queer identity as a way to make money.”

Instead of attending the formal SF Pride events on Sunday, Birnbaum will be going to an intimate LGBT film festival in a community space six miles south of city hall in an area known as the Bayview – one of the only remaining black neighborhoods in the city.

Birnbaum, who helped organize the all-day film event, is one of many LGBT people in the Bay Area who plans to skip the mainstream Pride festivities in the northern California city known internationally as a mecca for gay people.

While queer people said it’s important to come out on Pride as a way to stand up to the violence in Orlando and discriminatory laws across the country, some said the San Francisco parade has become too corporate, straight and white to feel like an appropriate setting to show LGBT solidarity.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.