KC PrideFest consolidation another worrying sign of our anti-diversity times | Opinion
In a Facebook video, with no public meeting and no community comment period, the future of a 50-year institution was decided. KC PrideFest will be absorbed into LGBTQ-focused nonprofit Our Spot KC as a fundraiser. That’s how we in the Kansas City LGBTQ community found out.
This didn’t happen in a vacuum. The Trump administration has defined sex as strictly binary by executive order. It has rolled back transgender protections across education, the military and federal employment, and directed agencies to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Missouri enacted a sweeping ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and Kansas is pushing for the same. Some cities suspended nondiscrimination ordinances entirely after the administration threatened to withhold federal funding.
Corporate America got the message. Nearly 40% of executives pulled back their Pride partnerships in 2025. Legacy sponsors walked away from major events nationwide, leaving organizers fighting to survive or simply canceling outright.
The work Our Spot has done in this city is extraordinary. The Lion House program, the outreach and the advocacy have materially saved lives. My respect for that leadership is real. It is also not the same thing as sound governance.
Kansas City has always taken pride in being a city that shows up. But even here, the pressure is winning. Heading into PrideFest’s 50th anniversary, local reporting shared the news that KC Pride Community Alliance had a $200,000 shortfall, which organizers attributed directly to the chilling effect of anti-diversity rhetoric.
That financial picture is brutal, and it may explain why this consolidation happened. But it doesn’t justify how.
Last year, the Kansas City Center for Inclusion merged into Our Spot. Now PrideFest follows. One leader served as both executive director of Our Spot KC and president of the board of the KC Pride Community Alliance, concentrating Kansas City’s queer infrastructure under a single organization and a single person. KC Pride has cycled through Show Me Pride, the Diversity Coalition and the Pride Community Alliance. Each transition promised a fresh start. Each has narrowed the circle of who decides what Pride looks like. The growth of the grassroots, DIY People’s Pride KC celebration — which does not accept corporate sponsorships — signals that part of our community already feels shut out, and other cities have been through similar experiences. Where centralized control fractures communities, and when a single organization collapses, it doesn’t just damage Pride. It can kill it.
I should be transparent: I served on the Pride board briefly as the community tried to move past a previous organizational collapse. My concerns don’t come from the outside looking in. They come from someone who has seen what happens when governance fails this community, and who recognizes the signs.
Financial precarity makes transparency more important, not less. We deserve separated oversight. Public input on how PrideFest is governed and resourced. An independent advisory structure for PrideFest that includes voices outside Our Spot’s leadership. Transparent financials so the community understands where resources are going and why.
Fifty years of Pride in Kansas City earned us, the queer public, the right to a voice in our future. We should not have to learn about it from a Facebook video.
Christopher Draven is a near-native Kansas Citian who has worked across several LGBTQ+ boards, nonprofits and community organizations for the past 20 years.