I recently had the chance to chat with Emily Carr, the Operations Manager at Project Pride Sarasota. The city where my wife grew up has a special place in my heart, and I wanted to know, What’s it like running an LGBTQ+ organization in a place like Florida?
Florida has a reputation for its discriminatory laws and policies, like 2022’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which barred instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for grades K-12, and a 2024 abortion ban. The queer community has every reason to feel distrustful of state legislators, but my own experiences in Florida have always been positive. In fact, my family even participated in a 2023 Visit Orlando campaign, “Orlando For All” with Passport Magazine. I’ve often felt torn about my love for a place in which the legal landscape and social climate raise concerns about the safety of my family.
So I started by asking Emily outright, “Is it difficult to run an organization like this in a state that has such a bad reputation?” She paused. “Yes, it is,” she said, before adding, “I think that we are fortunate to have a really healthy relationship with our local community.” Emily went on to tell me that Project Pride actively supports local non-profit organizations and the work that they’re doing. “We share our mission and vision by working with and supporting others to share and accomplish their mission and vision,” she explained. This includes teaming up with local food banks, organizations that help Sarasota’s senior community, and supporting local initiatives that are already in place, rather than creating new ones. “For a young organization we have a clear sense of identity and purpose. We have an excellent ecosystem that we’re part of here in the local community.”
Emily tells me that Project Pride events involve the participation of many businesses that people wouldn’t necessarily expect to see supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Not only are they invested in creating strategic partnerships with local business and local government, but there has been a lot of advocacy at school board meetings in the past few years, and Project Pride offers mental health services at their headquarters, and they support ALSO Youth to offer events and provide scholarships.
“We worked very closely with the local government to secure Sarasota’s municipal equality index,” Emily says, which the Human Resources Campaign uses to assess cities.
In December 2024 they filed their first application and received a score of 61 out of 100. “We see this as an important milestone in South Florida,” Emily tells me. “We are certainly working with our local partners to improve, but we see that number as really impressive for this area.”
The mission of Project Pride, which was started in 2019, is simple: “Celebrate, advocate, and empower.” Emily repeatedly used the term “joyful” during our conversation when telling me about Project Pride’s community events and initiatives. She believes that Project Pride does a “beautiful job of uniting as many folks from as many walks of life as possible. We are an inclusive, joyful, celebratory organization.” They host three signature events every year including a Grand Carnival and Silver Pride, which focuses on Sarasota’s 55+ community.
I confess to Emily my mixed feelings about Sarasota, and my belief that there is a vibrant community for queer people and allies. She says that she understands that this isn’t a place where one would necessarily look for a queer community, but that she believes Project Pride is working to shift and change that. “We want to be a resource for folks who identify as gay, or queer, or LGBTQ+, and who are looking for community resources.” She also tells me that Project Pride has prioritized the trans community because they are specifically in need at this moment.
When I ask her what she would tell someone who is new to the area and looking for queer community, Emily replies, “Reach out to Project Pride one hundred thousand percent!” Spend time with folks, she encourages. “We have free events like street clean-ups and disco brunches. These are fun, low stakes, accessible and no-cost ways to meet the community, and that’s one of my favorite aspects of the organization.”
As someone who considers myself a low-level activist, my conversation reminds me that states like Florida and cities like Sarasota need people to do this kind of work. It is especially important in places where it feels more difficult. “It’s impactful when you’re doing the work in an area where folks really need it.”
In the end, Emily comes back to the organization’s message of joy and love. “We are using joy and celebration to uplift the community and showcase folks who are doing positive and important work,” she tells me, and I can’t help but want to hop on a plane and join the Project Pride community at their next gathering at Mellow Mushroom, a queer-owned and inclusive pizza place in Sarasota.
Hey there. Laura Leigh here. I’m a wife, writer, mama, small business owner, podcast host, and the Head of Content here at Pink Robin.
I love supporting the queer community and bringing shared experiences to life.
If you have a story to tell, I’m here for it.
la********@pi***********.com
I remember when my wife and I first became moms, I knew that our ability to “pass” was behind us. I was never going to pretend that my wife and family were something other than exactly who they were. It was freeing to know that I had to live my queer life out loud, that I would forever be myself in every space, all the time.
In a 2023 CNN article Daniel Korschun, associate professor of marketing at Drexel University explained that when it comes to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, executives “are becoming much more skittish about taking these stands and making strong statements.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Poll, roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults say there is at least some discrimination against transgender people in our society. Because trans rights have become such a contentious issue across the country, companies that used to view supporting pride as “low stakes” have become less likely to support the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. “The pendulum is swinging a bit back … toward a more conservative approach, where they’ll be less vocal,” says Korschun. According to a recent NBC News article, Target stores will only sell pride merchandise in select locations this year. The retailer will not have Pride collections in about half of their locations. Additionally, they will only sell pride merchandise for adults.
An argument that Target has made in the past and is now using again is that this decision protects their LGBTQ+ employees, but let’s be clear: Conditional allyship is not support. Pulling queer merchandise from their shelves and essentially pretending that we don’t exist–and ignoring those of us who have children that want to celebrate pride with us–is detrimental to our community. Erasure threatens our safety. This weekend my mom told me that she’s done with Target. Like her, I can’t say I feel good about spending my money in a place that doesn’t value my family. As of today, the ACLU is currently tracking 515 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. We exist, and abandoning us only endangers us.
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