Diana Rodriguez, Founder of Pride Live & Stonewall Day, joins ChedHER to discuss the mission and story behind Pride Live, and what to expect from this year's Stonewall Day.

chedHER

How Pride Live is Advancing the Fight for LGBTQ+ Equality

joining us now is Diana Rodriguez, founder of Pride Live and Stonewall Day. Diana so glad to have you on this morning, can you just talk a little bit about you know, what's the mission and story behind Pride Live? Well, good morning Alicia, it's good to see you a small team and I started pride live about 10 years ago to accelerate awareness and support for the LGBT community. We started by supporting smaller organizations like the title Community Foundation by developing campaigns and raising money for them. And then one day I was asked to join a meeting with the folks at the National Parks Conservation Association uh and that led to us working on the campaign to bring about the Stonewall National Monument, Which President Obama designated in June of 2016. Uh and it has been nonstop for us ever since your events have raised funds for L G B T Q organizations that really otherwise would have been left behind. Can you just talk a little bit about what kind of impact Pride Live has had to date? Sure. Um Well for the last two years, our signature event, Stone all day has elevated awareness and support for organizations that we believe live and breathe the Stonewall legacy. So those are trans based and founded organizations. We've been fortunate enough to highlight the work of organizations like Trans tech Social Trans Lifeline, the Brave Space Alliance and one of our proudest moments came in 2020 during the height of the pandemic when we highlight a trans lifeline during our Stonewall Day program immediately after Stonewall Day aired, Giving the trans lifeline increased by 178% during the pandemic. So for us, that's impact and that allows a great organization like trans Lifeline to continue their life saving work. When you look at this community, right, what are some of the most pressing issues facing the L G T B Q plus community? There's so many, I think they've been increased over the last five or six years um at the top, I would say definitely the increase in anti gay legislation that don't say gay bill in florida and the makeup of the Supreme Court. I think it's mind blowingly scary how much effort is going into trying to make sure that we don't exist, to pretend that we don't exist, that we don't have rights that we don't experience love, pain and loss. Um it's not an easy existence when you wake up on a monday and wonder if you're gonna have the same rights on Tuesday. So for us, our answer is we stay positive and we keep trying to have a positive impact in the work that we do and it's why it's so important to kind of, you know, celebrate this month and also remember things like Stonewall right, Stonewall Day to that effect is coming up a program of pride life, Why is this campaign so significant, especially right now we're talking about this and what's in store for for this year's Stonewall Day, I think the fact that stonewall happened over 50 years ago, it's really important to remind people why it happened, especially with everything that's going on today, to get to this generation involved and engaged and that's normal legacy for us. Stonewall Day has been a labor of love and for being such a small organization, We're really proud to say that in 2019, Stonewall Day trended six globally on social. In 2020. Stonewall Day was ranked the number one pride event last year. We broadcasted Stone all day on twitch, which was a new platform for us, but we really wanted to connect today's generation to the Stonewall legacy. We wind up having broadcast numbers over a six hour livestream, which for us as today's generation, is ready to pick up that bar and carry the Stonewall legacy forward Um as far as what we have coming up this year on June 24 because we are a new uh free event, we actually can't share who the talent is, but I do encourage everyone to follow us on social at real Pride live on I G and we'll keep up post dates, uh we'll post updates there about the event. I'm sure there's a lot of excitement in terms of being there, especially to support and the support at a time where you were saying earlier, where it feels like some days you wake up and you don't know if you're gonna have the same rights today as you, you had yesterday, It feels like in some ways we are taking steps back after taking so many steps forward. When you look at the future of pride live, what are the future plans, you know, beyond this year? And how do you hope to continue to fight for L G B T Q plus Quality Alicia, we have a huge announcement coming up in 10 days and Jpmorgan Chase is a huge part of why that's happening. Um, so once that goes live, we'll be able to share it with everyone. Um, but aside from that, we'll continue to do the best that we can to be of service of others to continue fighting for our rights and just to be of service as best of the candidate community, our allies and to the world at large. And really quickly when you look at others out there who may be watching this and thinking, what can we do, what can others out there do to support the L G B T Q plus community and just support equality more broadly. You know, for us, we say small steps, it's really important, I think in today's world where there's a cancel culture and people don't really want to communicate with each other, know your neighbors, know what's important to them, um, become a part of their lives, support each other. Sometimes when we talk about grandiose and national campaigns, it's really hard for folks to relate to that. So for us it's step by step starting your neighborhood and then go from there, have those critical conversations, You know, we're we're humans, we like to communicate yet we feel like, or it feels like, you know, in the last couple of years we've lost a bit of that, that human touch and that casual conversation that leads to common ground and and hopefully progress. Diana really appreciate your time and your insight and certainly all the work that you're doing. Diana Rodriguez founder, a Pride Live and Stonewall Day.