Why the first Pride event in conservative Placer County was historic and cathartic
Tied around Sophia Karavlan’s neck was an enormous lesbian Pride flag, the purple, orange and white stripes flowing down the Del Oro High senior’s back like a cape. Classmates Felix Ardoin and Sergio Ortiz stood next to Karavlan in Roseville’s Royer Park listening to the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus perform songs including Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” and Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing.”
The three high school students came to Roseville to attend Placer County’s first in-person Pride event last month, on May 21. For Karavlan, who realized she was gay during the pandemic, this was a first opportunity to attend a Pride celebration.
“Everyone out here is crazy friendly,” Karavlan said. “I was worried that bringing a flag would be too much, but everyone makes me feel really comfortable.”
Though smaller in scale than Pride events in Sacramento or the Bay Area, Placer Pride was historic. The culmination of three years of planning, the event signaled that Placer County’s queer residents are coming into their own as a community ready to live their lives openly in a region known for its conservative politics.
“Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Oh, (Placer) is so conservative,’ and I think, ‘It is, but you weren’t here in ’94, when you really had to keep quiet about your politics,’ ” said long-time Auburn resident Daniella Zimmerman, the lead organizer of Placer Pride. “Change is happening.”
Placer County’s reluctance
Placer Pride preceded Pride Month, which starts now, June 1, with Pride Day nationally observed on June 28, the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 1969 Then, the police had raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village. A riot followed outside on Christopher Street. A year later, Gay Pride Week and the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade were launched. The evolution continued with what is now known as the New York City Pride March.
Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama led the way in establishing June as the month devoted to recognizing gay pride.
In Sacramento, the Pride March and Festival 2022 June 11 and 12 comes to the capitol mall after being shut down by the pandemic.
Conservative-leaning Placer County residents and elected officials generally have not celebrated the spirit behind the these moments. They have hesitated to embrace LGBTQ+ residents, especially queer and transgender young people, to the detriment of the community.
Last June, the city of Roseville refused to fly the rainbow Pride flag. In September, the Rocklin Unified school board spent two hours debating district policy on staff email signatures, a subject apparently designed to generate controversy over whether people should be able to state their pronouns and make other gestures toward inclusivity. The county itself continues to maintain a relationship with Rocklin’s Destiny Church, a megachurch whose pastor promotes homophobia and transphobia.
When Roseville was considering a policy that would have allowed the Pride flag to fly during the month of June last year, City Councilman Scott Alvord said he discussed the symbolism of the flag with his son, who is gay.
“He explained to me very clearly that the flag – or the lack of the flag – sends a message,” Alvord said at the June 16, 2021 city council meeting. “If the flag flies ... it sends a message to bullies, to employers, to family members, to our neighbors that we are inclusive, accepting, and tolerant. He explained that the flag will saves lives – it will change attitudes.”
Alvord was the only city council member to vote in support of flying the Pride flag. Again, the flag will not fly in Roseville this year.
Given these public examples of explicit and implicit homophobia — and many more experienced privately by LGBTQ+ residents — it’s no wonder queer kids like Karavlan worry about whether they might need to tone down their true identities in public.
Del Oro senior Ortiz, who expected far fewer than the several hundred people gathered in the park, had to drive around the block to find parking — “a good frustration,” he said.
“This is a nice change, especially from where we go to school,” Ortiz said. “It’s not very welcoming for a lot of people, so to have something like this is really nice.”
The surprising success of Placer County’s first in-person Pride event is a result of the determination of several local lesbian women and mothers of queer children. It is also a testament to the presence of a growing LGBTQ+ community that refuses to hide in the shadows any longer.
“The reason it’s called Pride is that for so many generations, people who were LGBTQ+ were made to feel shame for who they were,” said Steve Hansen, who, when elected in 2012, became the first openly gay member of the Sacramento City Council.
“To live openly and to love openly was to invite rebuke from people who didn’t with you and to put yourself at risk for violence...I just think it’s really incredible. Placer County is changing and this is proof of that.”
A handful of places and groups in Placer are dedicated to queer and trans youths, including Gay-Straight Alliances at many high schools and The Landing Spot, a non-religious LGBTQ+ support group run by Loomis Congregational Church. Still, when prominent local religious leaders denounce same-sex relationships and non-binary gender identities, and when neighbors display signs for bigoted candidates on their lawns, it can be difficult to feel accepted.
For many, the event was significant not only for its celebration of the LGBTQ+ community but also because it showed that Placer County is not the conservative monolith that people in Sacramento and other nearby communities believe it to be.
Zephyrus Todd, who was the only out trans person when they attended Placer High School, told me during the event, “It was pretty rough for me growing up.” That’s why Todd, who was raised in Auburn, now works at the Trans and Queer Youth Collective, a Sacramento-based organization offering spaces for local young people to connect and play games like Minecraft and Dungeons & Dragons. Todd runs Creative Queers, a place for young people to pursue arts and crafts projects or even just finish their homework.
“Being able to get this opportunity at TQYC was super-important to me,” Todd said. “I would love to be the person I would have wanted to see when I was younger.”
Born this way
The importance of providing support to young queer and trans people was a common priority among older queer people at the event, many of whom lacked such resources when they were young. At Royer Park’s gazebo, which was being used as a stage, 22-year-old Valshapero (who goes by a single drag name) performed to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” an anthem for the queer community. At one point, the drag queen left the stage and interacted with several young audience members dressed head-to-toe in rainbow attire.
“Whenever you see a child in an LGBTQ space, you know what it means to them, especially if you didn’t have that yourself,” said Valshapero, who wore knee-high black boots and a sparkly homemade two-piece in the colors of the Non-Binary Pride flag. “For the youth, seeing events like this (where they) are celebrated and uplifted is probably life-changing and sets them down a whole different path.”
Placer Pride was organized with the support of PRISM-Q LGBT & Allies Resource Center, a non-profit organization working to establish such a center in Placer County. It could use some support from local governments, which did not contribute to the Pride event.
California State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, who represents San Joaquin County, made history when she was elected as the first lesbian woman of color to serve in the Senate in 2020. Eggman said the triumph of Placer Pride shows that “while we have lost some battles in recent months, we are winning the war.”
“Pride is an opportunity to push back as a unified community against the attacks and hatred we have seen targeted at our community across this nation,” Eggman said. “We’re here, we’re queer and we aren’t going anywhere. Love wins out every time over hate and I think Placer County Pride is proof of that.”
Change is happening
Zimmerman, the lead organizer of the event, has been trying to make her dream of an in-person Placer County Pride event a reality for three years in the face of repeated pandemic delays. The organizing committee of mostly local women spent countless hours and even some of their own money bringing it to fruition.
Royer Park was covered in rainbow decorations, and the hundreds of colorfully dressed attendees talked, laughed and smiled. A row of booths lined one side of Royer Park, and local churches and LGBTQ groups handed out stickers and bracelets. Placer County had even set up a COVID vaccination booth where residents could get shots for free.
By holding the event in late May, organizers hoped to avoid the triple-degree heat that usually hits Roseville around June as well as conflicts with Pride events in Sacramento, Davis and San Francisco. Placer Pride organizers are already looking forward to next year’s second annual in-person event, which Zimmerman says will be “bigger and better.”
Some local business owners who declined invitations may have feared losing customers by supporting the LGBTQ+ community, Zimmerman said. The success of the event could prove to more of them that change is happening in Placer County and that supporting our queer and trans neighbors is not a political act but a necessary act of love.
Zimmerman, whose son is trans, poured her heart and soul into the event. But she said she would have worked “twice as hard” just so Placer’s LGBTQ+ youth felt celebrated.
“So many youths are struggling and in crisis,” she said. “So to look around and see them with trans or rainbow flag capes running through the park with a big smile on their face makes it all worth it.”
The shared sense of amazement was palpable. Here, finally, was Placer’s own Pride event. We didn’t have to travel to Sacramento to wave rainbow flags without fear of backlash. It was freeing, it was joyful and it was beautiful.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.