A Letter from the Chair
June 2025
The Ithaca Pride Alliance is celebrating its second year partnering with you all to bring this festival to fruition. We intentionally chose “Alliance” in our name to emphasize collaboration and support for the existing queer community in Tompkins County, building upon the established foundation to address community needs. This past year we hosted our first series of keystone events like The All Y’all Clothing Swap, the 2024 Ithaca Pride Festival, and Transgender Day of Remembrance. IPA also was able to support community organizers in events for queer youth and elders, and be a nucleation point for further conversations and actions.
Despite these successes, the current political climate presents challenges. With worsening national politics, the retraction of DEI policies, the vilification of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, threats to their healthcare, and dwindling funding, the Ithaca Pride Alliance remains defiant and hopeful. We still have a long way to go to reach liberation and we are here with you all in the work.
The theme “Queer Joy, Queer Power” emerged during our initial community planning meeting in February. As art submissions came in, and we heard more from the community, it quickly became a favorite.
As a community Queer Joy comes up often, as a vital aspect of our celebration, but it is more than just celebration; it's crucial to recognize its unique power.
Queer joy exists in defiance of systems actively opposing our existence and happiness. It is joy intertwined with struggle, and that very joy is a source of power. Pride serves as a commemoration of the enduring presence and ongoing battles of queer individuals, honoring past struggles while bracing for those ahead. It reminds us of our origins, our history, and our continuous, interconnected fight for liberation.
In times of personal struggle, turning to our history and elders often provides me with some guidance. This year’s Pride Festival Grand Marshal, Ned Asta, illustrated Larry Mitchell’s 1977 queer manifesto, Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions. This fable, set within a declining empire called Ramrod, offers a timeless and particularly relevant critique of capitalism, assimilation, and patriarchy and shows how queer joy can exist and persist through challenges. It serves as a potent reminder that our current struggles are not novel and that through past and present fights, the queer community has persisted and will continue to do so. The book and its illustrations were deeply influenced by the Lavender Hill Commune, a recently designated historic landmark outside of Ithaca. Lavender Hill and its members were remarkable for their diverse representation of genders and sexuality, their self-sufficient lifestyle, but perhaps most notably, their radical vision of queer family and community. Lavender Hill turned mainstream American ideas of gender, sexuality, and home on their head through its physical and philosophical creation of a queer family of choice.
Pride is about celebrating our history and the past fights of our community, while preparing for future ones through our joy and celebration. It is my greatest hope that folks are able to find community at one or more of the events listed here, and that people are able to find new support and resources in the fight. Join our mailing list, volunteer for the festival, or just go out and have a great time.
While the Lavender Hill Commune no longer exists and Ramrod is only a fable, we can all take lessons from them about chosen family, community care, and working through difference and conflict as well as what is at risk if we choose to quiet down and sit out of fights because it doesn't directly affect us.
“Even weak links in the chain are links in the chain.”
― Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
I wish you a joyful and powerful pride month and can’t wait to see you all!
Andrew Scheldorf, PhD
Chair Ithaca Pride Alliance