Tag archives: LGBTQ

Santa Barbara’s young art scene emphasizes identity, voice, and change. All three can be found in the work of 21-year-old Isa Saldivar. Working their way out of the foster care system, Isa came to Santa Barbara as a queer, Chican@ outsider – a perspective that continues to inform their art. In our conversation, Isa reflects […]

On a blustery January Saturday, I attended the first-ever Queer Climb Night in Santa Barbara, hosted by Climb Out, a newly formed group dedicated to creating community for self-identified LGBTQ+ individuals.  As much as I enjoy the sport as an on-again, off-again pastime, I often feel intimidated when walking into climbing gyms. The walls, which […]

It is always a pleasure to host artists in the Dear Montecito column. I feel that their stories and reflections help ground us, particularly when the current event landscape feels so urgent and so claustrophobic. As the opening to our 2023 column, I wanted to invite a young writer to use this space to reflect […]

Increasingly, the idea of intersectionality is finding its way into our everyday conversations. This is a topic we explored in this column when talking to the Westmont Feminist Society, who hold up a mission to promote diversity and education. This week we’re talking to Anusikha Halder, the head of the Trans & Queer Commission at […]

On a personal note, I remember Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice and LGBTQ rights, who died at his home in Cape Town aged 90. I met the Anglican Archbishop in 2011 at a reception at the beachfront Montecito home of the late Nancy Koppelman and found him unfailingly charming. […]

For many nonprofits in Santa Barbara and around the nation, the height of the COVID pandemic was a time to retrench, perhaps scale back operations or even temporarily close their doors. Pacific Pride Foundation (PPF), on the other hand, not only kept nearly all its services available, but also expanded some of its programs in […]

Professional dancer-choreographer Harout Aristakessian self-describes as being at the intersection of three nationalities – Lebanese, Armenian, and American, as well as a gay-feminist-cisgender Christian, ultimately seeking to break the social constructs of sex, gender, race, nationality, and creed through dance.  He is the founder and artistic director of the Dance with Harout (DWH) Performance Company […]

The Pacific Pride Foundation (PPF) turned the Rosewood Miramar Beach Resort Chandelier Room into a Platinum Palace, literally. As designer Merryl Brown said, “There will be elements of muted gold and ivory floral and masses of silver.” The Royal Ball is so over the top, they only hold it every two years. Guests arrived with […]

Partying with Pride Pacific Pride Foundation (PPF) has again partnered with Merryl Brown Events to deliver its 2019 gala, which will be held at the Rosewood Miramar Beach. Limited to 400 guests, this Royal Ball is the first major fundraising event at this stunning new resort. Because planning and production on the event are so […]

“It takes more than a village… it takes a community.” The theme of the Domestic Violence Solutions (DVS) luncheon was Community and purple is their color. We were in the Loggia Room at the Santa Barbara Biltmore to celebrate what has been accomplished so that victims are visible – not invisible – and to raise […]