Harmful oversight led to the continuance of intentional erasure | Letter

Published 1:30 am Monday, July 6, 2026

Your article titled “Pride on San Juan Island” and your print edition’s single photo published in your June 22, 2026 issue did a great disservice not only to your publication and the 2SLGBTQIA+ residents of San Juan Island, but also to the community at large. One would hope allowing the single image associated with the article to feature heterosexual men, hired to provide bartending services at the San Juan Island Pride Foundation’s (SJIPF’s) Pride Party “Queers in Wonderland” rather than any one of the number of images you had available to you featuring Queer folks who attended as guests, or performers, or volunteers, or members of the SJIPF’s Executive Board, or either of the dedicated Queer women who labored and birthed the event into existence was a harmful oversight rather than a continuance of the intentional erasure of our existence! As the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+, especially Trans folks, in the US and around the world are being systematically and violently erased, now is not the time to for laissez-faire journalism. Please educate yourself on these and other issues affecting the lives of the 2SLGBTQI+ members of your local community, as well as throughout the world, and be mindful of how your paper chooses to represent them, and us, moving forward.

Dr. Alisha Halverson

San Juan Island