Defund Pride

Yup. I said it. Argue with your mother.

Now, before you come at me with your pitchforks, hear me out.

Every June, corporations discover they're queer. Like clockwork. Banks suddenly remember trans people exist. Insurance companies tweet in rainbow gradients. Telecommunications giants slap a Pride flag on their logo while charging you ninety bucks a month for internet that still cuts out during Netflix. Somewhere, a marketing executive who wouldn't know Sylvia Rivera from Sylvester Stallone proudly signs off on a campaign about "celebrating authenticity."

It's all so fucking touching.

Until July 1st.

The TD Union Station rainbow arch disappears, the logo quietly reverts back to blue, and everyone goes back to business as usual.

We've become so accustomed to Corporate Pride that we mistake sponsorship for solidarity. Somewhere along the way we convinced ourselves that liberation requires a platinum sponsor. It doesn't. In fact, I think Pride might be healthier if it lost a little money. Not because I want Pride to disappear. Because I want it back.

Pride was never supposed to be comfortable. The first Pride wasn't a festival. It wasn't a tourism campaign. Nobody was lining up for VIP wristbands or buying seventeen-dollar vodka sodas from branded bars sponsored by multinational banks. It was a goddamn protest.

It was angry people taking up space after years of police harassment, discrimination, violence, and public humiliation. In Toronto, the roots of Pride stretch through the response to the 1981 bathhouse raids, when hundreds of men were arrested in one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. The organisation that eventually became Pride Toronto grew out of grassroots activism, community picnics, and political marches. Not corporate partnerships.

The earliest Pride celebrations weren't polished. They were fucking homemade. A drag queen dancing in the street because someone brought a speaker. A lesbian bookstore selling paperbacks from a folding table. An HIV/AIDS organisation grilling hot dogs to raise money. Artists painting signs by hand. Leather daddies arguing politics over cheap beer. Everyone knew someone who knew someone. Nobody needed a corporate activation zone. The community built Pride because nobody else was going to. That's what made it ours.

Then the brands arrived.

Now, I'm not naïve. Corporate sponsorship wasn't born out of pure evil. As Pride grew, events got bigger. Bigger events need permits, insurance, barricades, stages, security, accessibility services, portable toilets, staff, and enough electrical wiring to power a small city. Money had to come from somewhere. Then it came from everywhere. Banks. Telecoms. Car manufacturers. Big-box retailers. Pharmaceutical companies. Every company suddenly wanted a float. Not because they'd undergone some miraculous moral awakening. Because queer people turned out to be an attractive market demographic.

We had disposable income. No kids. Urban professionals. Excellent taste in cookware. And capitalism looked at us the way a shark looks at a bleeding seal. Suddenly Pride wasn't just a protest. It was an advertising opportunity.

People love saying Pride is free. Sure, the parade is. Walking down Church Street is. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with three million other sweaty fags is. But that's not really what Pride has become. Orbiting around the free events is an entire economy. Circuit parties. VIP rooftops. Exclusive brunches. Ticketed dance events. Private after-parties. The kind of places where a weekend pass costs more than some people spend on groceries. Who gets to go? Usually the people who already have the most. Wealthy professionals. Influencers. Men whose entire personality is "I do Hyrox and own a condo."

Meanwhile, queer youth, working-class people, newcomers, disabled people, trans folks scraping together rent; they're often spectators to a version of Pride that increasingly feels designed for somebody else's wallet. We've managed to recreate class inequality inside one of the few places that was supposed to belong to all of us.

Honestly? That's almost impressive.

In 2025, Pride Toronto announced it faced a funding shortfall that eventually reached roughly $900,000 after several major sponsors—including Google, Nissan, Home Depot, and Clorox—withdrew support. Organisers warned future festivals might need to scale back.

Most people reacted like the sky was falling. I didn't. I wondered whether this might be the best thing that ever happened to us. Because here's the dirty little secret about corporate allyship. It exists only while it's profitable. The second political winds shift. The second shareholders get nervous. The second diversity becomes controversial. Poof. Gone.

Now look at Pride Toronto 2026.

The money never really came back. Despite cutting costs, adding new sponsors, and trying to patch the hole, Pride Toronto is still facing a deficit estimated between $700,000 and $800,000. Executive Director Kojo Modeste has warned that if this trend continues, future festivals will almost certainly be smaller. Organisers across Canada have even appealed to the federal government for additional support just to keep pace with rising costs. This is not a criticism of the staff at Pride Toronto. They're doing what any non-profit does when it suddenly loses almost a million dollars. They're scrambling. They're making impossible decisions, trying to keep one of the largest Pride festivals in the world alive.

Everyone keeps asking the same question: "How do we replace the corporate money?"

I think we're asking the wrong fucking question.

The better question is: Why did we build a Pride that couldn't survive without it?

Turns out the rainbow was vinyl. Who could have possibly seen this coming? Besides every queer person over forty.

This isn't an argument for starving community organisations. Far from it. The HIV clinics still need funding. Queer youth centres still need funding. Housing initiatives still need funding. Trans mutual aid still needs funding. The work matters. I'm talking specifically about the idea that Pride itself has to become bigger every year.

Former Pride Toronto leaders and longtime activists have actually argued that this funding crisis presents an opportunity to return to Pride's political roots, warning that decades of commercialisation fundamentally changed the event's character from a community movement into one increasingly shaped by corporate partnerships. I think they might be onto something. Because community doesn't require six figures. Community requires people.

So how do we bring back the Pride that once was?

Throw worse parties. Seriously. Book local DJs instead of celebrity headliners. Hire queer artists instead of giant event companies. Let neighbourhood bars host fundraisers. Let drag performers pass the hat. Give community centres the microphone. Have awkward potlucks. Dance in parks. Argue over whose playlist sucks. Fall in love. Break up. Volunteer. March because you're angry, not because somebody handed you a branded tote bag. Build something together. That's the stuff that survives.

The beautiful thing about queer people is that we've always been experts at making something out of nothing: families out of strangers, homes out of bars, communities out of rejection.

We survived decades when corporations wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. Back then, nobody wanted to put a rainbow on a logo. Now that some of them don't anymore, we're acting surprised? Please.

If your allyship disappears the moment the stock price gets nervous, it wasn't allyship. It was advertising.

And maybe that's okay. Maybe we stop pretending otherwise. Maybe we thank the corporations for the years they helped pay for the porta-potties. Then we politely show them the door.

Because Pride doesn't belong to Google, or TD, or Adidas. Or whoever discovers next June that queer people are profitable again.

Pride belongs to the drag queen with the Bluetooth speaker. The lesbian selling zines. The trans kid who's never been before. The old activist who still remembers getting chased by police. The bartender collecting donations in a pickle jar. The volunteer sweeping up glitter at midnight. The people. Always the people.

If losing corporate money forces us to remember that...then maybe going broke is exactly what Pride needs.

Not to save the festival.

To save its soul.