In this episode of the San Diego Pride Podcast, we’re talking funding, advocacy, and the future of arts and culture in San Diego. Host Joslyn Hatfield and co-host Amber St. James sit down with San Diego Pride Director of Advocacy and Programs Brock Cavett to unpack the City of San Diego’s proposed FY27 budget cuts and what they could mean for LGBTQIA+ organizations, artists, and community programs.

Together, they explore the proposed elimination of arts and culture funding, the potential loss of nearly $400,000 in city support for San Diego Pride, and the broader impact these cuts could have on local artists, nonprofit organizations, and the region’s cultural landscape. The conversation also highlights the vital role Pride plays in San Diego’s economy, generating an estimated $27 million in annual economic impact while supporting year-round community programs and grants.

Most importantly, this episode is a call to action. Learn how you can make your voice heard, advocate for arts funding, and help ensure that LGBTQIA+ organizations and cultural institutions continue to thrive. Because the arts are not a luxury, they are essential to community, visibility, and belonging.

The San Diego Pride Podcast is a long-form conversation series exploring the stories, creativity, resistance, and collective joy that shape LGBTQIA+ life in San Diego and beyond.

Episode 1 reflects this mission through a dynamic conversation inspired by Fabric of Pride, San Diego Pride’s first-ever fashion-centered fundraiser celebrating queer style, self-expression, and cultural storytelling. The episode explores the powerful role fashion has played throughout LGBTQIA+ history, not only as a form of personal expression and celebration, but also as a tool for survival, visibility, protection, resistance, and connection.

From coded handkerchief systems and underground queer signaling to drag, club culture, protest fashion, ballroom aesthetics, and contemporary queer style, the episode examines the ways LGBTQIA+ communities have long communicated with one another nonverbally through clothing, style, and presentation. Fashion becomes more than aesthetics; it becomes language, identity, armor, art, and rebellion.

Grounded in conversation and historical context provided in partnership with Lambda Archives of San Diego, the episode connects present-day queer fashion and culture to the generations of LGBTQIA+ people who used style to find one another, challenge societal norms, carve out safer spaces, and express identities that the broader culture often attempted to erase. The discussion highlights how fashion has allowed queer people to both blend in for safety and stand out in acts of radical authenticity.

At the same time, the episode celebrates the joy, creativity, and artistry that continue to define queer cultural expression today. Through reflections on Fabric of Pride, the podcast uplifts the designers, performers, artists, activists, and community members who continue to push culture forward while honoring the histories woven into LGBTQIA+ self-expression.

The San Diego Pride Podcast serves as a platform for dialogue bridging past and present while amplifying the voices shaping the future of LGBTQIA+ communities. Through storytelling rooted in history, community care, creativity, and celebration, the podcast reflects the enduring spirit of Pride in San Diego: resilient, evolving, joyful, and unapologetically visible.