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This year, the start of June marked two important beginnings for me: the start of Pride Month and the start of my work in a new position on campus.

Many cities around the US celebrate LGBTQIA2+ Pride in the month of June by hosting parades, festivals and other events to honor the struggles, successes, revolutionary risks and everyday lives of LGBTQIA2+ folks and communities. For many people, including myself, Pride events are opportunities to celebrate love and identity, authenticity, community and political progress. But, they are also opportunities to connect with each other, organize, advocate and creatively, collaboratively dream up new, more inclusive, equitable and accessible futures together.

The very first Pride festival I attended was at Dolores Park in San Francisco in 2008, about a year after I came out. I remember feeling overwhelmed with experiences of community, acceptance and so, so many rainbows but, most of all, with this strong, tangible sense of hope that filled the air. I have been a regular, costume-donning Pride participant ever since and look forward to Pride month for many reasons but most of all for that sense of hope.

June 1st of this year is also when I officially began working in a new position on campus, as the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s program development specialist.

Before transitioning into this position, I worked as a teaching assistant professor in the Department of English and served as one of the co-chairs for UNR’s Queer & LGBT+ Advocacy Board (QLAB). Through my work with QLAB, I’ve been able to lead and co-lead many Safe Zone (LGBTQIA2+ Ally) training workshops for different groups across campus. Leading these trainings often provides me with a similar kind of hope as what I’ve felt at Pride festivities: a sense that it’s really possible for life to feel safer, kinder and more inclusive and an invigorating awareness that there are other people out there who want to work toward that reality just as badly as I do. I look forward to continuing my work with these trainings in a more official capacity in my new role, as we incorporate Safe Zone and other training workshops into the offerings provided by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

In fact, the similarities between Pride and my new position go far beyond a shared start date. Both involve advocacy, collaboration, authentic expression, confronting difficult realities, dreaming up new and better futures and daring to hope that we can actually create those futures, even when it feels like we have little to no energy left for hope. So, as your new DEI program development specialist, I’d like to invite you out to celebrate all your identities with us at Northern Nevada Pride this year, come chat with us at our table during the festival and maybe indulge in a little hope with us.

While June has officially been designated as Pride Month, the Northern Nevada Pride Parade and Festival take place in July each year. This year, they’ll be held on Saturday, July 23rd. The Parade is scheduled to take off at 10 a.m. from Fifth and Virginia St, and the festival is scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Wingfield Park.

Many UNR organizations and groups have sponsored and/or attended Northern Nevada Pride in the past, and many are planning to again this year, including (but not limited to) ASUN, Orvis School of Nursing, the School of Medicine, the Latino Research Center, the Graduate Student Association and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. If you are part of a group on campus who would like to sponsor, march and/or table at Northern Nevada Pride, please do reach out! Alternatively, if you’d like to connect with a group already marching and tabling, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion would love to help connect you or to have you celebrate with us!

To contact Angela about Northern Nevada Pride or about DEI insights, goals, or hopes, please email amoore23@unr.edu.