Opponents show graphic video as SLO County supervisors debate Pride Month declaration
Speakers once again bombarded the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting with homophobic rhetoric and graphic images Tuesday, as supervisors considered whether to declare June as Pride Month.
The discussion came nearly a month after the board initially hit a stalemate over the declaration at a meeting marked by similar displays.
The speakers on Tuesday once again argued that passing a resolution recognizing Pride Month would invite lewd behavior to San Luis Obispo County.
Gala Pride and Diversity Center operations director JBird, however, countered that narrative, saying that Central Coast Pride hosted positive, family-friendly events this summer.
“It was the widest-reaching, largest-attended Pride we’ve had in history so far,” JBird told The Tribune on Wednesday. “We had love and light and bubbles and glitter and happy families and people of all ages connecting and being safe and being heard and finding resources.”
The board ultimately voted 3-1 to pass the resolution, with Supervisor Debbie Arnold dissenting and Supervisor John Peschong abstaining. Both Arnold and Peschong abstained during the previous vote on the declaration in June.
“What we are trying to say to members of our community, including members of our staff, is that we see them,” Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said during discussion. “We see them for who they are and we don’t want them marginalized. We don’t want them attacked. We don’t want them to be feeling that they’re less than.”
Arnold, however, said she preferred a countywide statement of support that applied to all residents, rather than a targeted statement of support for the LGBTQ+ community. Peschong had other qualms.
“I’m still trying to figure out the men who believe that they’re women participating in women’s sports — I don’t agree with that,” he said. “I also do not agree with men who believe that they are women in women’s safe spaces.”
Last year, Peschong and Arnold voted against an almost identical resolution, though that motion also passed 3-2 with supervisors Jimmy Paulding, Bruce Gibson and Ortiz-Legg voting in favor.
Tuesday’s resolution acknowledged that the Pride movement started as a protest against violence targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, while noting that current legislation continues to target LGBTQ+ people.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 527 anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed across the country, many of which seek to block gender-affirming care, drag performance and curriculum that discusses LGBTQ+ history and experiences.
Locally, speakers at an Atascadero City Council meeting last month said LGBTQ+ people should be hanged or drowned.
JBird said Pride Month celebrations offer a refuge from anti-LGBTQ+ hate and an opportunity to find support and build community.
“For us, Pride is proof of life,” JBird said during public comment. “Pride is safe space in the face of those that wish us harm, that wish us hate. That wish us, as recently recorded at an Atascadero City Council meeting, wish us — including our youth — death.”
Pride protesters show graphic video, images
Three speakers at public comment showed a collection of graphic images, including photos of people’s genitalia, explicit images they said were of children in the process of gender-reassignment surgery and videos of naked adults interviewed at what the speakers said was a San Francisco Pride event this year. The speakers also spread misinformation about the LGBTQ+ community and shared homophobic and transphobic comments.
“If you’re offended with nudity or lewd acts, you should probably step away,” county resident Gaea Powell said before playing the video. Powell is a member of the Moms for Liberty group and a former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate.
County Supervisor Jimmy Paulding interrupted the video to ask county counsel how the board should handle the presentation “if there’s children watching at home.”
Arnold, who serves as the board chair, had the authority to moderate public comment, county counsel Rita Neal said.
“This is a public meeting, and I think the chair can certainly request that our speakers and images — that they should be respectful to all,” Neal said.
Arnold called the presentation a form of free speech. She allowed the next speaker to show more of the video.
“If anything is offensive to you, you can turn your head,” Arnold said.
Indignant gasps rippled through the audience as the video played. Peschong walked out of the meeting during public comment then returned for the vote.
One woman in the audience stood up and said: “I’m thinking we should stop this. I don’t want to see it.”
Other audience members shot back, telling her to close her eyes or leave the meeting.
“County counsel, if you want to pay attention, we’re seeing pornographic images, which perhaps run afoul of First Amendment Rights,” Paulding said while another speaker shared the rest of the video.
Later during the meeting, Paulding pledged to work with the County Counsel’s Office to craft a policy that limits offensive speech during public comment.
“I do want to apologize to those in attendance and those at home,” he said. “There’s obviously a way to make a point, and many would agree that that’s one way not to make a point.”
He said the Pride Month resolution does not endorse public nudity, grooming or pornography, as some of the public commentators alleged.
Instead, “what we’re talking about is lifting up members of our community who have been historically marginalized,” Paulding said.
Ortiz-Legg criticized the presentation, too.
“What we saw today was actually quite violent,” Ortiz-Legg said. “You don’t want to go to San Francisco and see those things? Don’t go. We didn’t bring that here. That’s not what this is about. This is about recognizing individuals that are humans, that are part of our community, that are part of our family — and because of what went down today, you made it very clear why we need to do this.”
Numerous family-friendly Pride events held in SLO County, Gala director says
After the meeting, JBird discussed how the Central Coast Pride events differ from what was shown in the video.
“All of the examples that were used, none of them were from any of our events,” JBird said of the graphic images shown at the meeting. “If your concern is that this is what’s coming to San Luis Obispo — what’s already in San Luis Obispo is not this.”
They added: “Us as the Central Coast Pride leadership, our focus is to build a safe space for our community, and that includes our neighbors — that’s not just the LGBTQIA community, I mean that geographically.”
One of the largest family-focused events this year was Pride in the Park, JBird said.
Event organizers vetted vendors to ensure that they catered to families and that performances were appropriate for children. Members of the local drag collective The House of Mello-Havoc even dressed as fairy tale characters for an interactive story time with children, JBird said.
“We have multiple parent-kid duos and families that are involved in the whole event production, and that makes it very easy to stay family-focused, because they’re there with their input and their suggestions,” they said.
JBird thanked Gibson, Ortiz-Legg and Paulding for supporting the Pride Month resolution.
“Proclaiming June as Pride Month tells us you see that we live here,” they said. “You see that we’re a part of your community — working individuals, people living, growing, loving. You say that SLO County does not support hate, does not support these threats of death and hurt and opposition.”
