Post navigation

Prev: (06/04/18) | Next: (06/04/18)

Organizers face down challenges to raise money for 2018 Seattle Trans Pride

Just after Seattle’s new symbol of trans-inclusion, the Pride flag re-design, launched, the future of the annual Trans Pride on Capitol Hill looks strong.

Organizers Trans Pride Seattle and Gender Justice League have been fundraising against the clock to meet the costs required to host this year’s event and have smashed through the $20,000 goal. The fiercely independent group has, again, done it by depending on mostly small, individual donations.

This year has also been especially challenging as leader Danni Askini’s surgery has left the advocate unable to use her voice. Askini is executive direct of the Gender Justice League. She has been busy on Twitter, however, calling out Mayor Jenny Durkan and other city leaders for their lack of effective action on homelessness. Askini says that 37% of Trans people in Washington have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives and “33% of respondents who experienced homelessness in the past year avoided staying in a shelter because they feared being mistreated as a transgender person.”

“These numbers are shameful in a city with two LGBT mayors in the past 4 years,” Askini writes:

While the fundraising goal for Trans Pride 2018 has been achieved with weeks to spare, organizers said it has has been a challenge. “Significant streams of revenue for our services and work have been cut off such as community direct HIV prevention funding, and housing discrimination education funding,” they write. “These sources made up nearly 25% of Trans Pride Seattle’s funding. Other ‘mainstream’ funding continues to be extremely hard for us to access – we receive no city or county funds, have no TPS specific grants, and do not accept major corporation sponsorships.”

Seattle Trans Pride is the largest Trans Pride event in the Northwest, drawing crowds of 10,000 people yearly. This year, in order to support Seattle-area talent and minimize costs, most performers will be local.

UPDATE: Individual donations are an important part of fundraising for the project — but only part:

You can still give. Donations at the $10 “Side Kick” level receive a trans pride mini rally kit, up to Seattle Trans Pride shirts at the “Hero” level, and more as incentive tiers for donations.

Trans Pride 2018 is June 22nd with a march through the area and then a rally in Cal Anderson Park:

Trans Pride Seattle 2018

Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Danni Askini
Danni Askini
5 years ago

It would have been great to be given a heads up or reached out to for comment before pulling together a story based on social media posts.

jseattle
Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  Danni Askini

Danni, Dylan assured me that he reached out for comment on this story before we posted about the situation. Happy to update or correct anything we didn’t get right. I’m sorry if the message never reached you. I’ll check in with the reporter to learn more.

Dylan Austin
5 years ago
Reply to  jseattle

Hi Danni! Apologies for any miscommunications! I reached out the night before and it appears you received the message. Hoped to hear from you but also wanted to support the cause on the short notice. Would love to chat about your concerns.