Anti Prom wants to be an alternative to Pride

While most LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations are dominated by glitter and rainbow motifs, another celebration makes its mark in The City this month with fashion of more humble origins.

Brujas founder Arianna Gil, whose New York skate group is co-hosting an “Anti Prom” event in The City for the first time June 22, said this year’s event is taking thematic inspiration from the source of San Francisco’s name.

“We have been studying St. Francis,” Gil said, specifically mentioning the canonical figure’s role as the patron saint of all creatures. “We will be thinking about some of his teachings.”

Brujas’ June 22 event at the U.N. Plaza skate park is the organizers’ fifth Anti Prom, and it will pay homage to its first-time host with outfits inspired by the era of St. Francis. Gil, who said the theme draws inspiration from the 2018 Met Gala inspired by “Catholic imagination,” is excited to be donning a dress styled like a monk’s robe.

Anti proms have long served as an outlet for teenagers who feel left out, such as younger high-school students not old enough for the upperclassmen event and queer young adults who didn’t feel comfortable at their own proms. Brujas’ event this month, co-organized with the Oakland art and music collective Le Vanguard, is no exception.

Running from 3 to 7 p.m. June 22 and headlined by the rapper and producer Vayda, the 2024 Anti Prom is billing itself as an alternative to what organizers see as increasingly corporatized Pride celebrations. The Anti Prom aims to be a space for The City’s queer community and its straight allies to engage with each another about prevalent issues such as capitalism and reproductive rights while also being able to enjoy themselves.

“Everything can't be heavy all the time,” said Cherry Bogue, one of the organizers for Le Vanguard. “When we feel a heaviness, we have the need to let things go and come together.”

Brujas takes its name from the Spanish word for “witches,” and in its activism, the group draws parallels between historical witch hunts and modern-day abortion bans and discriminatory laws against transgender people. Gil said “autonomy and self-determination” are at the heart of both legal pushes, similarities that are often “missed in the battle between cis-woman and trans-woman politics.”

Bogue said organizers wanted to provide an alternative event as “more corporations shift into this very performative, economic-supportive Pride.”

Representation is important, she said, as is increased visibility and acceptance of such celebrations — but it can also detract from Pride’s roots.

“We lose a lot of the integral aspects of what queer culture is, especially femme queer culture,” she said. “Pride was a riot.”

The first Gay Pride Liberation March took place in Manhattan in 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The year before, LGBTQ+ New Yorkers had fought back against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn — a gay club in Greenwich Village — in response to previous violent treatment from law enforcement.

Bogue and Gil said they aim to have their Anti Prom be more reminiscent of past LGBTQ+ activism, centering discussion of issues that are particularly pertinent to the San Francisco queer community, including homelessness. Bogue said said she had “been homeless and couch-surfing at times during the pandemic.”

Unhoused people are often disproportionately LGBTQ+, including in The City. San Francisco has not yet released the final results of its 2024 Point-in-Time Count — a federally mandated measure of homeless residents — but 28% of its unhoused population identified as LGBTQ+ in 2022. The share was even higher (38%) among homeless people under the age of 25 .

In 2021, the UCLA Williams Institute estimated that 6.7% of people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont-Hayward metropolitan statistical area identified as LGBTQ+ .

“All of us are constantly in that precarious space,” Bogue said. “Very few of us have the ability to access property that actually can be ours.”

“We're gathering in a queer city and with a queer collective,” Gil added. “And we're definitely looking forward to discussing other problems, like homelessness and poverty.”

Brujas’ fifth event is especially exciting for Gil, who said it was “a dream come true” to bring Anti Prom to The City’s new skate park.

Most of all, the organizers said they are looking forward to bringing people together.

“Our friends and community, we all need a reset, or even just a few hours, to pretend everything's OK — to be in the present and be in the moment,” Brogue said.

Tickets for Anti Prom are available on Le Vanguard’s website — $15 for one person, $25 for a pair and $40 for four attendees.