ABOVE: St Pete PrideFest’s 2021 Kickoff at Sirata Beach Resort. Photo by Ryan Williams-Jent.
ST. PETERSBURG | St Pete Pride, traditionally Florida’s largest LGBTQ Pride celebration, announced its new leadership Sept. 9 ahead of its upcoming 20th season.
Nathan Bruemmer, a longtime board member who oversaw 2021’s reimagined PrideFest as St Pete Pride’s president and acting executive director, has stepped down to become a strategic advisor for its board. Tiffany Freisberg, who served as this year’s vice president, has assumed each of the roles.
“We are deeply grateful to Nathan for his dedicated service to St Pete Pride over the last several years,” Freisberg said in a statement. “His commitment to diversifying the organization and its programming, including the conceptualization and creation of the St Pete Pride Trans Pride March, will continue to make an enduring impact on the community.”
St Pete Pride also wished Bruemmer success as the state’s LGBTQ+ Consumer Advocate for the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He became only the second person to fill the role, and the first who is transgender, when Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried appointed him to the position during St Pete Pride on June 25.
Freisberg is the creative director of LionMaus Media, an ad agency she co-owns with her wife. They moved to St. Petersburg with their three daughters in June 2019 and were captivated by its commitment to equality.
Determined to actively engage with the local LGBTQ community, Freisberg reached out to St Pete Pride seeking volunteer opportunities and “the rest is history,” she told Watermark in June. She joined the board in January 2021 and helped conceptualize this year’s four weeks’ worth of COVID-conscious events while laying the groundwork for 2022’s landmark 20-year celebration.
“St Pete Pride is on the verge of its 20th anniversary, and we’re excited to focus our energies on reinvigorating the organization while simultaneously planning an unforgettable 2022 Pride season,” Freisberg says. “Our top priority in the months ahead will be to expand the board of directors to be more reflective of the community, recruit a dynamic executive director and actively enlist a broad spectrum of volunteers.”
Freisberg is joined on St Pete Pride’s executive committee by Board Secretary Molly Robison, Treasurer Stanley Solomons and Susan McGrath, member at large. She says its leadership team wants “the community to feel that St Pete Pride truly belongs to them, and we’ll work hard to invite participation from a more diverse and inclusive range of volunteers and partners than ever before.”
“This year’s PrideFest celebration included St Pete Pride’s first ever large-scale family-focused event, as well as its first Juneteenth recognition,” she also notes. “We were overwhelmed with the positive response and we’ll continue to broaden St Pete Pride’s programming to reflect the full range of experiences within the LGBTQ+ community.”
The sentiment affirms St Pete Pride’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement adopted earlier this year.
“St Pete Pride was created out of a desire to ensure a safe space for all people of the LGBTQIA+ community of Tampa Bay to celebrate unity and the many things that make us similar,” it reads. “As we move forward into a bright new future, we do so purposefully and with intention to not just embrace those similarities but welcome, celebrate and promote respect for the many intersections of the human experience.
“We value and respect diversity in its many forms: race, ethnicity, ability, class, faith, age, gender identity, sexual orientation and experience,” it continues. “We honor the visible and invisible qualities that make each of us who we are. We center Black, Brown and Trans voices that so often go unheard because we know Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are the ultimate acts of Pride.”
St Pete Pride is currently accepting volunteer applications for committee members and other positions. For more information, email Info@StPetePride.com. To learn more about the organization and upcoming events, visit StPetePride.org.
