KC Pride MUST be different this year. 

No Pride for SOME of us without liberation for ALL of us! We shouldn't be riding in a car, all dressed up and waving to the crowd. We should be marching in the streets, chanting and screaming. In a hostile climate where the trans community is under attack on all fronts, a purely jubilant festival adorned with the decadence of corporate funding is tone deaf.

While joy is still resistance and we don't have to walk away from it entirely, it should take a back seat this year. Discussion panels, resistance workshops, protest sign making, stop the bleed and basic first aid training, mutual aid efforts like food drives and fundraising for local queer shelters and mutual aid organizations. Let's make pride mean something again. There can still be plenty of drag, art, and celebration, but it could be so much more.

Our demands of the KC Community Pride Alliance:

• Corporations that have reduced or minimized DEI initiatives should be barred from participating in any way.
• Corporate sponsors should be required to sign a pledge affirming their support of DEI.
• The overall theme should center organizing and activism and feature heavy support of the trans community, and particularly trans BIPOC advocacy. 
• All law enforcement entities should be barred from tabling or parading. (Also defense contractors.)
• Private security should be heavily leveraged and augmented by community safety teams to minimize KCPD involvement. (In a perfect world, we would say no cops at pride, but we understand that from a liability standpoint this likely isn't entirely possible.)
• The festival must be relocated to a far more accessible location with paved walkways and other reasonable accommodations.
• In light of last year's media censorship of the leather community and drag performers, we demand written assurances by media partners to cover ALL of pride and not just what they deem most palatable and proper. 

But for much of this to happen, the KC Community Pride Alliance has to stop clutching its pearls and living in such fear of losing its non-profit status. To protect itself, it doesn't even touch political activism in any way, shape, or form, even though no such legal requirement exists. Advocacy and issue-based lobbying are common practices by 501c3 organizations and they need to stop hiding behind their fear. IRS guidance is crystal clear here.

Make no mistake, our community is under attack top to bottom. They are simply starting with the most vulnerable group. If our community leaders will not stand up for us of their own volition, then we will make our voices heard.