Sonoma County LGBTQ+ community resists national anti-gay and trans backlash

Gay pride came to Sonoma County this week more vocal than ever, with the largest Pride parade and festival on the North Coast held Saturday in Santa Rosa — even as celebrations in many parts of the country were held against a backdrop of growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.

The voices that are spearheading anti-trans and anti-gay bills in state legislatures across the nation don’t have much of a platform on the North Coast. Still, local LGBTQ+ advocates and their supporters say it’s imperative to resist.

Nancy Moorhead, a member of the lesbian resistance group LezResist, which participated in Saturday’s Pride parade, said the chief cheerleader of hate and anti-gay backlash is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“We’re not going back — DeSantis is trying to push us back in the closet, but we’re not going back,” Moorhead said, as she stood on Fourth Street, waiting for her contingent of elderly lesbian activists waiting for the parade to start.

Moorhead recalled how back in the early 1980s she and others in a group called the Lesbian Voters Action Caucus mobilized a march a few years before the first official Pride parade was held.

“We were afraid to march, it was terrifying back then to be out, and the county wasn’t very supportive back then,” she said, adding that the LGBTQ+ movement has come a long way in terms of its widespread popularity, particularly among young people.

The attacks from politicians like DeSantis, who last year signed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law, stem from the fear of losing power, she said. The bill prohibits classroom instruction or discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity.

“I think they’re terrified of losing control of the white, male hierarchy,” Moorhead said, adding that she pins her hopes on younger people who have “grown up with LGBTQ+ people all around them.“

According to the ACLU, states in the past few years have advanced a record number of bills the organization says are essentially attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, especially transgender youth.

The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with a national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ+ people everywhere. The bills include attempts to limit the ability to update gender information on IDs and records, such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

The ACLU says some bills attempt to weaken nondiscrimination laws by allowing employers, businesses and health care providers to turn away LGBTQ+ people or deny them equal treatment. Still other legislation seeks to limit access to LGBTQ+-related books or ban drag show performances.

The organization is currently tracking 491 such bills, though a number of them have been defeated. That includes Assembly Bill 1314 in California.

Authored by Assembly member Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, AB 1314 would have required school districts to report to parents in writing if any student is “identifying at school as a gender that does not align with the child’s sex on their birth certificate, other official records, or sex assigned at birth.”

The bill died in April, after the chair of the Assembly Education Committee said he wouldn’t give it a hearing, effectively killing the legislation.

LGBTQ+ advocates say that although anti-gay voices are muted in Sonoma County and California, their impact is still felt, especially among youth who maintain a constant virtual connection with the outside world, said Heather Bailie, director of training and technical assistance at LGBTQ Connection, a nonprofit youth counseling and leadership training program in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Bailie said LGBTQ Connection’s encounters with youth have focused a great deal on the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also increasingly on the psychological and emotional impact of these anti-LGBTQ+ bills and laws.

“They’re bombarded with media about the bills that are affecting their peers in other parts of the country and it’s negatively affecting them,” Bailie said. “Our one-on-one support is a temporary relief from that and our safe spaces allow our LGBTQ youth to exist authentically as they are.”

Earlier this week, Grace Villafuerte, vice president of Sonoma County Pride, which organized Saturday’s parade and festival, said the current backlash against the gay movement can to some “feel like steps backward.”

But she said she thinks about what members of the LGBTQ+ community endured decades ago when their movement did not have the mainstream support it does now.

“In my opinion, it was much worse back then,” Villafuerte said. “We’re just doing our part in moving the ball forward. Also, these threats are indicative that we are making progress and people are feeling more threatened.”

Still, Villafuerte said the backlash against the LGBTQ+ movement has created some anxiety and even worry among event participants about the potential for violence.

Saturday’s parade and festival were organized with an eye on safety, she said, in partnership with local law enforcement.

This year, police and fire agencies had a much larger presence at the parade. Public safety contingents in the parade included the Santa Rosa Police Department, Santa Rosa Fire Department, American Medical Response ambulance service, Sonoma County Fire District, Sonoma State University Police, Petaluma Police, Petaluma Fire, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, Rohnert Park Public Safety and Cotati Police.

Chris Kren-Mora, president of Sonoma County Pride, said their participation along with that of local nonprofits, health care providers, businesses and local politicians made the event feel like “a big city parade this year.”

Santa Rosa police Lt. Chris Mahurin led the Santa Rosa Police contingent on foot, holding hands with his fiance, Ben. Mahurin said the presence of so many law enforcement agencies was important, given the turbulent history between the police and LGBTQ+ community.

He cited the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, an event that was triggered by a police raid of a gay club in Greenwich Village and saw several days of protests and violent clashes with police. Mahurin said rebuilding relationships between law enforcement and the LGBTQ+ residents is important because crimes in that community often go unreported.

“We want to make sure people feel safe to actually report (crimes) when they are a victim of a crime or if they need help,” he said. “So, being at these events is important.”

Mahurin called much of the blacklash against the LGBTQ+ community as “fear mongering,” and he questioned the morality of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in other states.

“We’re all the same community,” Mahurin said. “Some of these bills that are coming up and targeting LGBTQ people are just hurtful.”

He said that’s why it was important for law enforcement to show up in a big way Saturday, to demonstrate that “we are on the side of our community no matter what — that’s important.“

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.