RECLAIMING PRIDE 2022 & COMMUNITY SAFETY


PRIDE has always been a safe space for the LGBTQ+ comunity and more minority-owned small businesses belong at PRIDE to support and decorporatize PRIDE.

the first pride was a rebellion, not a corporate parade.

This Pride Month (and everyday), we want to honor the LGBTQ+ icons and trailblazers who led the riots to demand the rights of underrepresented members of our community and fight oppression.

The safety and wellness of the LGBTQ+ community is of the utmost importance to us.

At LA Pride this year, we handed out over 100 safety alarms by hand to members of the LGBTQ+ community and engaged our community in conversations of safety and wellness.

This world needs more people who are not afraid to be authentically themselves.

In this house, we believe in doing everything we can so that you can feel safe to be authentically you.

Handing out safety alarms and educating our community on how to use them helps empower people to call for help when they feel their most vulnerable.

OUR COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY SAFETY.

We pride ourselves on being educators, activists, and conversation starters.

We want to help create a world where everyone can be proud to be who they are.

WHAT IS A SAFETY ALARM?

A safety alarm is a self-defense tool that allows anyone carrying the alarm to draw attention to their situation and call out for help. Unlike pepper spray or mace, a safety alarm is not classified as a weapon, which makes the sale and purchase of a safety alarm legal in all 50 states.

During Pride Month, we will donate 5% of every purchase of a safety alarm to Out & Equal, so please spread the word and support small businesses!

CARRY ON, WITH PURPOSE.

We've compiled some resources below on the importance of allyship and solidarity.

According to NBC News, the annual number of anti-LGBTQ bills to have been filed has skyrocketed over the past several years, from 41 in 2018 to 238 in less than three months of this year.

We want to uphold the notion that small, locally-owned, and minority-owned businesses can help support the LGBTQ+ community. Small businesses do a lot of good for the local economy and it's not just large corporations that make a difference with their pockets. As business owners and immigrants ourselves, we want to champion the notion that ideology, intention, and connecting with our community matters.

For starters, we're advocates and firm believers that the world would be a far nicer, kinder, and more loving place if we allowed people to be who they are without judgment.

We all have our place in the world and opportunities everyday to recognize our own privilege and understand that people do not owe us an explanation. Everyone has their own journey of embracing who they are and becoming who they are, and practicing acts of compassion like asking what people's pronouns are or using gender-neutral language like "partner" to introduce your significant other can help folks within the community. Helping people be safe is important to us.

The Human Rights Campaign has a great list of actions you can take to strengthen your allyship skills.

For understanding what privilege is and how we can better understand where we have privilege, check out the Identity and Social Position Wheel by ALA.

Our friends at GLAAD have a great list of resources including topics like legal help, anti-violence resources, and transgender youth.

Likewise, The Safe Zone has a great list of resources for anyone beginning their journey on how to be a stronger ally. We also endorse this carrd.co resource, which includes different petitions, helplines, and organizations to donate to. We hope you find them useful too.