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LGBTQ

Celebrate the LGBTQ+ Community and Join Us in the 2022 San Francisco Pride Parade

06/23/2022 LightHouse Staff

It’s June–school is out, summer is in full-swing—and across the nation all month long we acknowledge, honor, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community with Pride awareness, advocacy, and events.

This year, LightHouse is honored to, once again, extend an invitation to all LGBTQ+ community members, their families, friends, and allies as we march in the 52^nd annual Pride Parade in San Francisco on Sunday, June 26. We will proudly commemorate LGBTQ+ heritage as well as raise awareness for the needs of LGBTQ+ people with disabilities. Join us in marching side-by-side or come to the LightHouse headquarters at 1155 Market Street to watch a live stream of the parade with audio description. Once the parade is over, and our contingency arrives at LightHouse, we will commence the Pride After-Party, serving snacks and refreshments. This is a celebration you won’t want to miss!

The celebration runs from Sunday, June 26, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Registration for the LightHouse Pride celebration will be required for all participants, whether they want to walk the parade route or watch from our LightHouse Headquarters at 1155 Market Street. There will also be opportunities for those who wish to volunteer. We will host a live stream of the parade, complete with an audio description. When our contingent finishes marching the parade and arrives at LightHouse, we will commence the Pride after-party, offering light snacks and refreshments. This is a celebration not to be missed!

The San Francisco Lighthouse is proud to provide visual interpreting services for the San Francisco Pride Parade in partnership with Aira. Aira will be describing the televised coverage of the parade from ABC affiliate, KGO Channel 7. Aira will not provide video coverage, but you may watch the video of the parade on one device and listen to audio description from Aira on a separate device. Here’s how:

Watching the Parade

The San Francisco Pride Parade will air on Bay Area station ABC 7 (KGO). It will also be streamed at abc7news.com/Pride.

Audio Description from Aira

Via YouTube

You can listen to the coverage on Aira’s YouTube channel. If you subscribe to the channel, you will be notified when the live stream begins.

Via Zoom

We will provide a Zoom Webinar for those wishing to use the Zoom platform. Go to bit.ly/airapride to join the webinar.

You can also listen by phone via Zoom at one of these numbers. For higher quality, dial a number based on your current location:

In the United States:
+1 312 626 6799 or
+1 646 876 9923 or
+1 301 715 8592 or
+1 346 248 7799 or
+1 669 900 6833 or
+1 253 215 8782
Webinar ID: 842 2939 6670
International numbers available: https://aira.zoom.us/u/kciAr2e0Nl

Accessibility for those Marching in the Parade

The parade route is 1.8 miles long and will involve standing and walking. We will have limited ways for seated options to participate in the parade. If you’d like to request a wheeled ride during the parade, please indicate this in the comments at the end of the registration form.

You may also request a human guide to march in the parade.

LightHouse Pride T-Shirts

The first 50 people to register for the LightHouse Pride celebration, whether marching in the parade or watching from our headquarters, will receive a free LightHouse Pride t-shirt. You may also purchase a LightHouse 2022 Pride t-shirt online at Adaptations.org. Our fabulous Pride t-shirt was designed in-house and sports a stylish and unique way to bring awareness to blind, low vision, and DeafBlind LGBTQ+ community members. The shirt is white and features a pair of sunglasses with the rainbow Pride flag reflecting in the lenses. A white cane leans on the left side of the sunglasses’ frame. Underneath the glasses it says “Be Seen” in black print with “be seen” in orange Braille dots beneath. On the back of the t-shirt is the LightHouse logo with “LightHouse” in uncontracted rainbow-colored Braille beneath the logo. T-shirts are available in sizes S-XL for $30.00, size 2XL for $33.25, and size 3XL for $34.50.

For more information about the San Francisco Pride 2022 event, please contact Sheri Albers, Community Outreach Coordinator, at SAlbers@lighthouse-sf.org or call 415-694-7331.

Order Your Pride t-Shirt online from Adaptations.org.

LightHouse News

Who are our SF Pride sponsors and why do we march together?

06/21/2018 LightHouse Staff 1 Comment

Thanks to the support of community sponsors The Mental Health Association of San Francisco and The Arc San Francisco, we have organized a pan-disability contingent for San Francisco Pride 2018 ready to make a strong statement about intersecting identities in the LGBT+ community.

Learn more about their reasons for marching with us below:

Meet the Mental Health Association of San Francisco

Q: What is the mission of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco?

A: The mission of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco (MHASF) is to cultivate peer leadership, build community and advance social justice in mental health.

Q: Why is the Mental Health Association of San Francisco a proud sponsor of the LightHouse Disability Pride contingent?

A: MHASF is a proud sponsor of the LightHouse Disability Pride contingent because we care deeply about the mental health of the LGBTQ+ communities we serve. Many of us are LGBTQ+ identified ourselves and have personal experience of mental health challenges due to stigma, isolation, and discrimination. We support one another and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our community partners to raise awareness about disability pride, rights, and resources.

Q: How does the work your organization does connect with the work we’re doing here at LightHouse?

A: Just as LGBTQ+ communities are not a monolith but a coalition of community partners with common goals and a shared vision, MHASF is a part of the larger community of disability advocates, including LightHouse. While the focus of our work may differ, our communities sometimes overlap, and MHASF is committed to promoting equality and self-reliance for people with mental health challenges, providing professional development and skills training, and amplifying the voices of people with lived experience.

Q: What does Disability Pride mean to you?

A: At MHASF, Disability Pride means bringing our whole selves to all we do and celebrating all of what makes us who we are. For many of us, our mental health conditions and histories have played an important role in making us the amazing, compassionate, resilient people we are today. We are proud of all we’ve accomplished, alone and together, and we want to share that pride with our community.

A: The first Pride was a riot. How can we keep this activist legacy in Pride and stay true to the spirit of the event?

Q: Our goal at MHASF is to advocate when possible — and agitate when necessary! Pride is a celebration of everything LGBTQ+ communities have accomplished, but now more than ever, we recognize that we can’t afford to be complacent, especially when it comes to our rights and our mental health. MHASF is proud to stand with LightHouse and other members of the Disability Pride contingent to support each other and call out injustice wherever we find it.

Meet The Arc San Francisco

Q: What is the mission of The Arc San Francisco?

A: Our mission is to transform the lives of adults with developmental disabilities by advancing lifelong learning, personal achievement and independence. Our full name is The Arc San Francisco. The “arc” in our name represents the arc of achievement. We believe that with the right support, over time, people with developmental disabilities can fulfill their highest potential, achieving personal goals and lifelong success — however it is personally defined. Our vision is to foster an inclusive world in which all people with developmental disabilities can thrive.

Q: Why is The Arc San Francisco a proud sponsor of the LightHouse Disability Pride contingent?

A: We are thrilled to be partnering with another organization that believes in the absolute equality of people with disabilities, and recognizes the intersectionality of people who have disabilities and are part of the LGBTQ community.

Q: How does the work your organization does connect to the work we’re doing here at LightHouse?

A: We have clients with developmental disabilities who are blind or have low vision. Both organizations recognize the full humanity of the people we serve which includes sexuality and sexual and gender identifications.

Q: What does Disability Pride mean to you?

A: Like LGBTQ Pride, we recognize that people with disabilities have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. People with disabilities are all born with unique gifts and talents to share, and have every right to fulfill dreams, achieve goals and participate fully in our communities.

Q: The first Pride was a riot. How can we keep this activist legacy in Pride and stay true to the spirit of the event?

A: It’s so important to recognize that The Stonewall Riots were a response by mostly drag queens, gender fluid people, and trans woman of color. They were what the police and US culture at the time thought were easy targets for bullying, harassment and abuse, and these revolutionaries had finally had enough. It’s a great story of how people who are ostracized, looked down on, shunned and seen as less than fully human can empower themselves, stand up, and demand justice and equality. By doing so, they not only liberate themselves, but all of us. People with disabilities experience so many of the same challenges that people who are LGBTQ face, and if you’re queer and disabled your challenges are even greater. By recognizing the true history of Pride we can learn from our achievements and empower everyone who is disenfranchised by our culture. We are not all free until everyone is free.

To sign up to march or learn more about our SF Pride Disability Contingent, visit lighthouse-sf.org/sf-pride-2018.

LightHouse News

Mark Your Calendars for San Francisco PRIDE 2018

03/08/2018 LightHouse Staff

We are excited to announce that LightHouse will march in the 48th annual San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, June 24th! The San Francisco Pride Parade’s mission is to educate the world, commemorate LGBT+ heritage, celebrate LGBT+ culture, and liberate LGBT+ people. This aligns with LightHouse’s mission to promote equality and self-reliance for people who are blind or visually impaired, and promotes the visibility of LGBT+ blind and disabled people.

The LightHouse is committed to inclusivity. Blindness intersects with every single identity, and we recognize the need to amplify the voices of disabled LGBT+ people and our community members. LightHouse is proud to open our doors and extend an invitation to all disabled LGBT+ community members, their families, friends, allies and the organizations that serve them. Join us as we celebrate the intersectionality of people who are blind, have low vision, have other disabilities, and the many community members who identify with both communities or actively want to support LGBT+ visibility. It’s a central part of our blind experience to be seen, be heard and to be proud of who we are!

Find out the many ways individuals can participate by visiting our Eventbrite page and signing up today. The first 100 people who sign up will receive a free Be Seen PRIDE 2018 t-shirt, to be handed out the day of PRIDE. We would like to extend an invitation to community partners to join us to make this a collaborative cross disability experience. For community based organizations interested in partnering with LightHouse’s cross disability contingent, individual questions, or help signing up on Eventbrite, please contact Laura Millar, Sexual Health Services Program Coordinator at info@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-431-1481.

For all volunteer related questions contact Allyson Ferrari, Volunteer Engagement Specialist at aferrari@lighthouse-sf.org or call 415-694-7320.

Make sure you sign up today on our Eventbrite page and #beseen with us, as we celebrate diversity at this year’s 48th annual PRIDE parade!

LightHouse News

#BeSeen in the Streets: Photos from Pride 2017

06/28/2017 LightHouse Staff

We’d like to express our gratitude to everyone who marched with us in San Francisco Pride on Sunday. Our contingent added up to more than 100 people. It was an empowering and joyful day and we’ve got the photos to show for it!

Serena Olsen wears a Rosie the Riveter headscarf and raises her hand proudly above her head as she marches with her white cane. Photo by Sarahbeth Maney.

Renae Davidson, Jordan Castor, and Ashley Butala smile and laugh as they march together. Photo by Sarahbeth Maney.

Volunteers Rochelle Quinney and her friends and family hold the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired banner. Photo by Sarahbeth Maney.

Kate Williams smiles and high-fives spectators along the parade route.

Vanessa Brash and Philip Berg march together. Vanessa holds a large with sign that says “Love” in text and braille. Photo by Sarahbeth Maney.

Melissa Hadiyanto and Robert Alminana walk arm in arm. Photo by Sarahbeth Maney.

Robert Alminana smiles and holds a sign that says “The first Pride was a riot”.

A black lab guide dog sits at the feet of his owner, who wears neon rainbow knee-high socks.

A girl wearing a Pikachu hat jumps into the air in front of the LightHouse banner while bubbles float around her.

Lisamaria Martinez carries her infant daughter while holding a “Blind and Proud” sign in one hand and her white cane in the other. Her husband Joe Bakker pushes a stroller in the background.

The LightHouse group marches down Market Street holding rainbow signs that say “Blind and Proud”.

Serena Garcia and Gaby Leal walk together down Market Street. Serena holds her hand high.

Joshua York and Laura Millar smile while marching alongside the LightHouse van. Laura holds a sign that reads “Blind and Proud”.

Blog Bits, Featured, LightHouse Media, LightHouse News

A Blind Poet in the LightHouse Studio: Watch “Vision” by Leah Gardner

06/21/2017 Camilla Sterne 2 Comments

“I’m a woman who’s a blind, depressed lesbian,” says Leah Gardner, with a good-humored chuckle. “That’s who I am. That’s my reality and I’m okay with it.”

Leah is also a part-time tech trainer at LightHouse and a slam poet. She will be marching with our San Francisco Pride Contingent this Sunday, June 25 to #BeSeen.

Leah hasn’t participated in Pride in about 15 years — since she was a young poet in New Hampshire and Vermont — but when she heard about our blind and visually impaired contingent from our weekly newsletter, she decided it was time to march again. In her late 20s, marching in Pride offered her a lot of hope, along with a sense acceptance and celebration in who she was and what she offered to a community. After a tough couple of years, Leah is ready to feel that hope again.

“There’s a lot of excitement building for me, just in terms of being part of this,” she says. “Every time that I participated in the New Hampshire and Vermont marches, it was with wonderful friends but they were all sighted. It was not part of a visually impaired community, as key to me as that was in my life. This year carries this newness to it. It will be a completely original experience of sharing this day with people who are also blind and GLBTQ. So I’m really energized.”

We’re asking folks to use the hashtag #BeSeen and think about what that means in the context of Pride.

“I think a lot of people are very comfortable with talking about sexuality but the vision loss and the reality of that creates a lot of shame,” says Leah. “And in my case I also deal with severe depression, which adds some challenges in finding a way to form bonds with other people. We all have some shame about something, some facet of our personality. This ‘Being Seen’ concept to me has become about saying no to that shame.”

And Leah is no stranger to thinking about the intersection of blindness and sexuality. One of the poems she has performed most over the years is a poem called “Vision” about a gay friend who was losing his sight. The poem unpacks the shame and fear that often accompanies both sexuality and disability, and is a testament to the courage it takes to go through a world that isn’t always kind to people it deems outside of the norm. In advance of San Francisco Pride, we asked Leah to perform “Vision” in the LightHouse studio. Watch the video below.

Leah will present this poem live at our “All Eyes on Allies: Pride Training and Community Building” on June 22 where she also discuss what it means to show up to Pride as an ally for people with multiple marginalized identities. This training will also teach volunteers how to be effective human guides.

We hope you’ll volunteer to be part of our contingent. Sign up to march with us on June 25 at our Eventbrite page.

LightHouse News, Open Call

#BeSeen: March in PRIDE with LightHouse, Get a Free T-Shirt

06/06/2017 LightHouse Staff

It’s Pride month, and here at LightHouse, our staff, students and allies are walking around the city, exploring exciting new ideas, and continuing to build the confidence and self-esteem of those in our community. We’re also thinking, from a blindness perspective, more than ever about what it really means to “be seen.”

At its heart, Pride is about proudly and publicly claiming an identity that society has consistently stigmatized or disregarded. We’re marching on June 25 in celebration of our LGBTQ community members, and to honor our many intersecting identities. People with disabilities are often either stripped of sexuality, or fetishized. This year we’re grabbing our canes, our guide dogs and our rainbow swag and taking to the streets to let the world know we’re blind, proud and sexual to boot.

You can learn more about what we’re doing for Pride month here, and if you are one of the first 35 to sign up for the festivities on Eventbrite, you’ll get a free “Be Seen” t-shirt (pictured below). These t-shirts can also be purchased for $15 in our Adaptations Store.

LightHouse staff member Esmeralda Soto and Ethan Meigs cross the street wearing LightHouse's 'Be Seen' Pride Tshirts. The shirts say 'be seen' in orange uppercase letters and 'SF Pride 2017', with a braille 'L' and 'H' in rainbow. — Two people cross the street wearing LightHouse’s ‘Be Seen’ Pride Tshirts. The black shirts say ‘be seen’ in orange uppercase letters and ‘SF Pride 2017’, with a braille ‘L’ and ‘H’ in rainbow.

Ethan and his guide dog Gershwin show off their LightHouse Pride t-shirts across from the UN Plaza, with a rainbow flag billowing in the background. — A man and his guide dog show off their LightHouse Pride t-shirts across from the UN Plaza, with a rainbow flag billowing in the background.

We introduced the #BeSeenSF hashtag exactly one year ago when preparing for our big grand opening at 1155 Market Street. On June 10th, 2016 more than a thousand people took over the streets of downtown San Francisco and marched into our new building – people with all levels of vision, from all walks of life. It was a spectacle in the best way possible: a display of joy and unity around a state of being that most people identify as a disability.

We didn’t stop there. Over the course of the year, we released several bold statements about what it means to be seen. Standing six feet tall and spread throughout the Civic Center BART station, each ad is a vivid, illuminated burnt orange with artistic rendering of a blind person going about their business – cooking, exercising, or moving through the streets with a cane or a dog. These tasks may seem mundane, but by putting the blind individual front and center, occupying the focus of the scene and popping boldly out of the brightly colored ad, we send a clear message to the public of San Francisco: blindness is just another way of being – and worth looking at in a different light.

Below, you can peruse all of the artwork for our ads, which were designed by J. Renae Davidson for LightHouse from July 2016 to March 2017. Pictured in them are some of the treasured staff, mentors and role models who you’ll regularly see strolling Market Street on any given day.

Bart Ad Compilation Image. Descriptions below.

This compilation of all our Bart Ads features an orange background with the words (in white) “The Best Place to Be Seen”. A tile of six black and white stylized drawings are as follows.

Top left: A man crosses the street in downtown San Francisco with his white cane. White words below the image read “Learning to use a White Cane”.

Top right: A woman stands at a bus stop with her guide dog, reading a tactile map. Words below the image say “Reading maps”.

Middle left: A man uses an Arduino continuity tester in the LightHouse Toyota Innovation STEM lab on the 11th floor. Text reads “Building Electronics: No Eyes Necessary”.

Middle right: A man chops juicy vegetables in the LightHouse Teaching Kitchen. Text reads “Cookin’ Without Lookin’: Now, That’s Delicious!”

Bottom left: A woman in the LightHouse Adaptations Store holds a magnifying glass up to her eye. Text reads, “Adapting Your Vision. White canes, talking watches, magnifiers & more”.

Bottom right: A woman runs alongside her fitness partner using a lead. The Golden Gate Bridge stands out behind them. Text reads, “Taking Strides Together. Find Your Fitness Partner Today!”

A mockup of our cooking bart ad hangs in an underground station with orange, yellow, red, and grey tile in the background.

Last year, SF PRIDE had its first ever blind grand marshal, Belo Cipriani, a welcome reminder that not only are our journeys often parallel, but our identities have significant overlap. This year, Sexual Health Services Program Coordinator Laura Millar is taking our PRIDE participation to the next level, and she wants you to join her. For more information, RSVP on Eventbrite or email Laura at lmillar@lighthouse-sf.org.

Blog Bits, LightHouse News

SF Pride Announces First-Ever Blind Grand Marshal

04/29/2015 LightHouse Staff

We’re very excited to share the news that our friend Belo Cipriani has just been named as a Grand Marshal for this year’s LGBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco! Pride is set to take over the city once again June 27-28, and for the first time, one of its eleven Grand Marshals will be totally blind. A past student of the LightHouse, freelance journalist and accomplished memoirist, Cipriani is an exemplary figure for both the LGBTQ community and the Blindness Community. After losing his sight several years ago after being brutally beaten in the Castro, Cipriani (now 34) emerged as not only an incredibly resilient character, but one willing to share his most personal experiences both in print and in person.

“This is one of the best things that has happened in my life and I’ll always treasure this moment,” said Cipriani, beaming from the front page of this week’s Bay Area Reporter, where he also writes a column called “Seeing in the Dark.” Cipriani has been attending Pride for going on twenty years now, and one can only imagine his “pride” at becoming the celebration’s first-ever blind Grand Marshal. Cipriani said he is brainstorming how to incorporate this into the theme for his parade contingent, adding, “the only thing that is certain is that my guide dog, Oslo, will ride with me in the convertible. I am sure he’ll have a blast.”

This year’s Pride Parade will march from Embarcadero to right near our headquarters at 214 Van Ness Ave., and we’ll be there cheering along. Read more about the 2015 theme, “Equality Without Exception,” over at the Bay Area Reporter. You can read more about Belo at his website, and hear him talk about himself and his book in the YouTube video below. Recently Cipriani also wrote a great article about beauty and dating for Huffington Post.

Have a cool story for us? Email tips to communications@lighthouse-sf.org.