Each year, San Diego Pride chooses a community to serve as grand marshals.
Near the front of the parade, they are cheered on for their year-round advocacy for the community, like with librarians and educators last year who stood up for LGBTQ+ youth amid book bans, forced outing policies and other attacks.
This year, the parade will be led by LGBTQ+ migrants and defenders.
“For me and our community, I think this is a big step,” said Jamie Arangure, founder of Proyecto Trans Latinas. “I think it’s really more important, double important, with this administration when we are under attack, specifically immigrant community and trans community.”
She said for decades the immigrant trans community struggled to connect to services and were not thought about by other LGBTQ+ organizations. “We were struggling, all the girls,” Arangure said.
She founded PTL with seven other women to help a marginalized group pushed to the edges of the community due to being undocumented, not knowing English and doing survival sex work.
They found resources for them and advocated with healthcare providers to improve their treatment. PTL brings workshops to all parts of San Diego, not just Hillcrest, to teach skills like first aid after an attack, beauty tutorials and more.
“We empower our community,” she said.
Arangure said many trans migrants are afraid right now as national rhetoric has emboldened the worst parts of society. “The administration gives them, the society, the excuse to [do] violent acts and to discriminate,” she said.
Leading the parade is meaningful for a community that needs more support.
“It is really important, now they are looking at us,” Arangure said. In addition to PTL, other nonprofits Border Angels, Haitian Bridge Alliance and Transgenero 2000 will be in the community grand marshal contingent.
PTL is a small organization with a low budget. Arangure dreams of opening a shelter for older trans women immigrants so they can retire from sex work and have a better life. “We have a lot of work to do,” she said.
Despite a lack of resources and targeting of the community, Arangure holds strong.
“Discrimination cannot stop us.”
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