When Phoenix’s LGBTQ+ community walks into Heritage Square this weekend, they’ll be met with a celebration of the city’s queer culture. DJs, musicians, drag queens and other talents will fill the area for “Arizona’s Greatest Street Fair” — the 23rd annual Rainbows Festival, which Phoenix Pride hosts. It’s the second-largest annual LGBTQ+ event in the state, behind only the annual Phoenix Pride Festival in October.
Some parties you throw to celebrate a love of life. In most of those 23 years, Rainbows has been exactly that. Other parties exhibit a spirit of defiance — a note that this year’s Rainbows Fest will strike simply by existing. As some 25,000 people gather in downtown Phoenix to enjoy a weekend of craft cocktails, local food trucks and more than 150 exhibits and booths, Phoenix Pride organizers are keenly aware of how urgently their community needs a safe space amid rollbacks of LGBTQ rights under the current presidential administration.
After President Donald Trump won in November, “there was immediate concern about what might be coming,” said Jeremy Helfgot, the spokesperson for Phoenix Pride. Despite the federal government’s targeting of the LGBTQ+ community, Helfgot said Phoenix Pride is holding firm.
“This community is not going to be quiet, and this community is going to continue that fight and redouble its efforts in that fight,” Helfgot told Phoenix New Times. “But it will not be marginalized. It will not be erased. Period.”
Since Trump won November’s election by a scant 1.5% of the popular vote, Phoenix’s LGBTQ+ community has braced for a cyclone. Parents of trans kids have created detailed folders full of essential medical and identifying information. Queer teachers have spoken with district lawyers about how to protect themselves from backlash. Families have had roundtable discussions about potentially leaving the country.
Now, two months into his administration, these Arizonans are in the eye of a storm.
The administration slashed federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, leaving community members vulnerable to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in such government programs as housing, welfare and employment. The administration has threatened to pull funding from institutions that rely on diversity, equity and inclusion programs to ensure balance and care in their hiring practices. In turn, many corporations, universities and local governments have shrunk from the moment, axing their DEI programs and generally marginalizing already marginalized people.
Trump has attacked the trans community, which has included funding threats surrounding trans athletes and gender-affirming care for minors under 19, as well as banning transgender people from serving openly in the U.S. Armed Forces.
For LGBTQ+ organizations in Phoenix, it has been a moment to come together. Organizations have hosted “know your rights” workshops, group therapy sessions, community discussions, town halls and connected others with social services resources. If you’re coming out to the party this weekend, you should consider what you, too, can do to help them ride out the storm.
How Phoenix Pride is navigating the moment
Phoenix Pride is “continuing to watch the landscape with tremendous vigilance,” Helfgot said. That has meant connecting with “partners in the public safety world and intelligence space” to “ensure that our events are safe and secure and proceeding without threat.”
Security and safety remain a large area of focus. Another is funding.
As the Trump administration has widened its crusade against DEI efforts, companies across the country have stepped back from supporting Pride events. Several of San Francisco Pride’s biggest past sponsors — including Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and the beverage company Diageo — aren’t providing funding for the event this year. Twin Cities Pride, Hampton Roads Pride, WorldPride and Pride Toronto have also seen corporate funds vanish.
So far, Phoenix Pride — or at least Rainbows Festival — hasn’t been hit by the same funding pulls. “Corporate and community partners have continued to be incredibly supportive,” Helfgot said.
For Rainbows Festival, several national corporations, including Jack Daniels, Sprouts and Coca-Cola, have continued their sponsorships. Notably, Hensley Beverage Company — whose parent company, Anheuser-Bush, ghosted San Francisco Pride — is a sponsor for this year's event.
Another big sponsor for the Phoenix Pride Festival is Amazon, which provides funding through its employee resource group, Glamazon. However, as the company has rolled back diversity programs and initiatives, it’s unclear whether Amazon’s support for Phoenix Pride will continue.
“I don't want to guess at how things may evolve,” Helfgot said. “In the short term, the folks who have supported us have continued to support us, and those relationships are strong.”
Arizona's lawmakers vs. LGBTQ rights
An amount of uncertainty is boiling right under the surface for Phoenix’s LGBTQ+ community right now. Trump’s strong anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy actions have also trickled down to Arizona and Phoenix.
Republican lawmakers in the Arizona Legislature have felt more empowered and emboldened than ever to push anti-trans legislation under the current federal government, Democratic Rep. Patty Contreras said. Anti-trans lawmakers believe “they have the mandate,” Contreras said. “And that’s kind of scary.”
This legislation includes bills that would prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice in schools, ban trans kids from using their preferred pronouns without parental permission, slash medical privacy for trans kids, and ban state programs related to race, gender or sexuality.
Legislators such as Contreras have “gotten up on the floor and spoken out against some of these bills,” she said. “My colleagues have gotten up on the floor and shared their stories.” But in a GOP-dominated legislature, Democrats have little power to actually steer legislation.
The crackdowns worry Contreras.“I’m married to a woman. I’ve been married for 18 years,” she told Phoenix New Times in February. “Are they going to not allow me to stay married? Or am I not going to be allowed to go to the hospital and see her if she’s in the hospital?”
For now, LGBTQ+ groups, parents and legislators are continually thankful for Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto stamp to stop “scores of horribly toxic, discriminatory, oppressive, just awful legislation,” Helfgot said. But a future without Hobbs, who is a former Phoenix Pride staffer, is one many don’t even want to consider.
Outside of the legislature, Trump’s influence continues to be felt. Republican Senate President Warren Petersen even traveled to Washington, D.C., to promote the President’s anti-trans athlete executive order. And after another Trump executive order, Phoenix Children’s Hospital stopped providing gender-affirming care for trans minors.
“Identities are now being treated as if they should not exist,” said Jessyca Leach, the CEO of Prisma Community Care, which temporarily shut down their care after the executive order. “That blows my mind.”
As the country enters the third month of the Trump administration, Phoenix’s LGBTQ+ community will continue to hold its breath. Each morning’s news brings more bleak surprises. Families are forced to consider the possibility that their home state may no longer be safe for them.
“We're not going to stop doing what we do for the community,” Helfgot said. “We will not be erased. We will not go away, and we will not stand down.”
Those sound like fighting words, perhaps. But they also point to one helluva party.
