San Diego LGBT Pride Official Souvenir Guide 2014 | Page 15

Remembering the Pioneers of Pride
On a summer day in 1974, just over 200 gays and lesbians
marched for the first time through the streets of downtown
San Diego to proclaim their sexual orientation and to demand equal rights.   
After the 1969 Stonewall Riots, gay activists were working
to organize protests and gay pride marches in major
cities.  As early as 1970, student activists from San Diego
State University held a gay picnic in Balboa Park.  The
following year, activists applied for a permit to march
and were denied by the police sergeant in charge, who
declared that “A homosexual march will never be held in
San Diego!”  This sparked the fire of protest in San Diego
LGBT activist and Vietnam Veteran Jess Jessop and Drag
Queen Nicole Murray Ramirez.  Working together with their
legal adviser, attorney Tom Homann, they helped build
a coalition that included the Metropolitan Community
Church, the Imperial Court de San Diego, the Center, antiwar activists, LGBT students from San Diego State University,
and other organizations and concerned citizens.  The
ragtag group was dismissed by the police as “deviants.”
Undeterred, these pioneers of LGBT Pride in San Diego
marched to the steps of City Hall where they held a
silent protest.  Many of these marchers had covered their
faces with paper bags for fear of reprisals.  They risked
the loss of their jobs, verbal and physical abuse, and jail
time.  California’s anti-gay laws that made homosexual
acts illegal would not be repealed until two years later in
1976.

the country, attracting over 300,000 spectators. 

That defiant march of 200 courageous men and women
in 1974 has grown to become the largest civic event in the
City of San Diego and the 4th largest LGBT Pride parade in

We honor and thank pioneers like Jess Jessop, Nicole
Murray Ramirez, Tom Homann, and the other brave
activists in San Diego for their courage and leadership in
blazing the trail towards equality! 

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