SF Prides executive director makes Out100 list SF Prides executive director makes Out100 list

The Executive Director of San Francisco Pride was featured in a new short documentary that premiered over the weekend. Suzanne Ford, the first transgender woman to hold the position as Prides executive director, is also receiving national acclaim and is being honored by Out Magazines Out 100 list.

SAN FRANCISCO – Suzanne Ford says she didn’t come out as transgender until she was 46-years-old. 

“I just didn’t think it was possible. I just thought I would lose everything in life. I would lose my relationship with my wife. I would lose my relationship with my son, my job. I think my ego was tied in to, you know, being the prior version of myself. I think I was afraid,” she said. 

It was fear, she says. But the truth is, she’s realized she’s gained more from being the true version of herself. 

Ford is the executive director of SF Pride, the first trans woman to hold this position. She’s the subject of a new short documentary, Beyond the Rainbow: The Intersection of Pride, which premiered at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater last weekend. 

Executive Director of SF Pride Suzanne Ford at KTVU Nov. 11, 2025. 

As the synopsis reads, the film examines identity, leadership, and legacy within the LGBTQ+ movement through two groundbreaking figures, including Ford and Nguyen Pham, SF Pride’s first gay Vietnamese American to serve as the SF Pride board president. 

Out100 honors

She’s also made the 2025 Out100 – a list compiled by Out Magazine that includes impactful and influential LGBTQ+ people. The categories include; artists, disruptors, innovators and storytellers. Ford is honored in the education category. Others on the list include former California legislator Evan Low, Rosie O’Donnell and costume and fashion designer Bob Mackie. 

“Well, you know, I’d heard about the Out100 several times over the years and just never really contemplated that I would be included,” says Ford. “I think it’s really important for trans people, especially from San Francisco, that one of their people from their community is included.” 

She says she doesn’t see herself as an educator within the community so much. “But outside of the community, I think I have a high prominent, you know, high visibility role in the Bay Area and in a lot of media.” 

She says that visibility is important in other parts of the country where they may not have seen a trans person before. To her, part of her job is really to be a trans ambassador. 

“Hopefully there are some people in the middle that have heard differing opinions about trans people and I hope that they know that we exist and that we have big, full lives and that we’re competent people,” she says. 

In some cases, she says, people may think they don’t know a transgender person, but in actuality, you may. “They just haven’t gotten to a place where they can come out yet,” she says. 

Featured in short documentary

Ford says the film premiere at the Roxy was well attended. She was able to be visible to her own community, which is an important source of inspiration.

“It was beautiful to be there with our community. There were some young trans women there, and I got a beautiful text from one of them the next morning,” says Ford in a sit-down interview with KTVU.

From Kentucky to the Castro: SF Prides trans executive director makes Out100 list From Kentucky to the Castro: SF Prides trans executive director makes Out100 list

Suzanne Ford has been the SF Pride executive director since 2022. She is the subject of a new short documentary film, Beyond the Rainbow: The Intersection of Pride and has been named one of Out Magazines Out100 for 2025 under the education category. In this interview with KTVU Digital Producer Andre Torrez, she says she came out later in life at 46, is committed to keeping SF Pride a free event for the foreseeable future, but realizes the organization needs new streams of revenue.

She says the person who texted her said it was inspiring and meaningful to her to see a trans person on film.

Reflecting on that moment, Ford says it was beautiful, humbling and overwhelming at once. “I thought all day long, like, how did this little kid from Kentucky get here?”

As far as being a role model, she says she’s really relied on her resilience. “I have not done everything right in my life. My life’s been a wild ride, and I’ve overcome a lot of things.”

She says she’s talked to parents of transgender kids and tells them it’s important to convey their children aren’t going to have an isolated experience. 

“There is this big life out there for them.” 

A Kentucky native

But she says the problem is what works for the trans community in the Bay Area doesn’t apply everywhere else. She can give parents of transgender children her pep talk in San Francisco, but she may not be able to say that to a family from Owensboro, Kentucky, where she’s from. 

Ford says her background and the fact that she came out later in life are things she uses to her advantage. 

She talks about her previous existence as a straight married man with kids.

“I’m from a working-class background from my family in Kentucky. I lived as a CIS hetero-normative person for a long, long time. I have children. My wife and I have a son at Cal Poly, and I lived in Marin County for a long time.” 

She doesn’t shut the door on that experience. 

Leading SF Pride’s future 

After being on the SF Pride board of directors since 2018, and having various other roles, she became the SF Pride executive director in 2022.

 It was a challenging year. 2022 was the fest’s first in-person year coming out of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“When they said, ‘Do you think you could do it?’  I foolishly said, ‘Yes.’” 

Ford says her prior socialization as a male helped her in that situation. 

Under her SF Pride leadership role, she has now worked under both the mayoral administrations of London Breed and Daniel Lurie. 

“It’s not perfect. We had a rough year financially this last cycle. What I most want to do is take the next two or three years and get Pride on stable footing financially,” she says. “We’ve got to find some other partners, and we’ve got to find some other streams of revenue. I want Pride to be free for the next 56 years.”

She mentions how Tampa’s Pride in 2026 has been canceled because of the current political and economic climate. Overseas, in Manchester, it’s a similar story of Pride being canceled because of financial hardship. 

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is the fragility of it. We kind of take it for granted in San Francisco, especially.” 

Dig deeper:

Ford addresses the criticisms of SF Pride becoming over commercialized. 

“The event costs approximately $4.3 million to put on,” she says. “I have seen some corporations say we want to do the right thing, but we want to do it quietly. I say, ‘OK’, you get to dictate that. We weren’t about giving you a commercial in the first place. 

And there are limitations on corporate presence in the parade. 

“There’s only five corporations in the first third of our parade. We feature more, in the front of the parade, more nonprofits than we do corporations,” she says. 

Those limitations extend to the size of corporate contingents in the parade. 

“We don’t do the huge, huge 2,000 people in a contingent anymore. I think we have listened to our community,” she says. “We want to make sure that queer nonprofits are the focus. That we’re not just doing commercials for corporations ‘cause that’s not our job.” 

She says with the current political climate and with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) taking a hit, that it does feel like Pride celebrations got to a point where they’ve become cultural phenomenons. “We got to a certain place, where [it seemed] there was no going backwards. Unfortunately, we do know now that that was not true.”

Continued resistance and living her life

Ford only gives a hint about next year’s Pride theme and it’s that, “We will be resisting.”

“We have to resist. We have to stand up and say what’s emanating from the Trump administration towards queer people, and especially trans people. We have to stand up and say that’s wrong,” she says. 

President Trump has taken it upon himself to crusade against transgender athletes from playing in women’s sports. 

“I live in the Castro now, which was a dream, to live in the big city and to live in the Castro. I live right on Castro Street,” she says. “And to walk through the Castro, I know so many people. It’s like being in a small town in a way, in a great small town.” 

She says all of her previous fears of what she thought she would lose, ended up being about what she’s gained. 

“I didn’t think it was realistic to have the life I have now,” she says. “I didn’t realize the whole time, I had the key.”

What’s next:

Ford says she plans on going to Los Angeles on Nov. 21 for Out Magazine’s Out100 reception to celebrate her award. 

For the extended interview with SF Pride’s Executive Director, Suzanne Ford, click this link. 

Andre Torrez is a digital content producer for KTVU. Email Andre at andre.torrez@fox.com or call him at 510-874-0579. 

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