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Tampa Pride\u2019s float at its 2025 Diversity parade. Credit: Dave Decker \/ Creative Loafing<\/p>\nTampa Pride\u2019s float at its 2025 Diversity parade. Credit: Dave Decker \/ Creative Loafing<\/p>\n
When it announced a year-long hiatus<\/a> last month, Tampa Pride claimed funding events, including its 2026 parade, wouldn\u2019t be possible due to state and federal anti diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. But other local LGBTQ+ leaders aren\u2019t ready to give up.<\/p>\n On Sunday in Tampa, former St. Pete Pride president Nathan Bruemmer, PFLAG Tampa president Trevor Rosine and BlaqueOUt Magazine managing editor and DEI consultant Tamara Leigh host a discussion called \u201cConvening on the Status of Pride.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosine told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the meeting isn\u2019t meant to form a new organization to replace Tampa Pride, but to help Bay area LGBTQ+ leaders coordinate their 2026 events.<\/p>\n \u201cPride does not live, breathe, and die with one organization,\u201d Rosine said. \u201cIt\u2019s a collective feeling we have as a community at these events, it\u2019s not a tangible thing that can be canceled on a whim.\u201d<\/p>\n While St. Pete Pride isn\u2019t interested in throwing a Tampa parade, it will also be a part of the meeting. President Byron Green-Calisch told CL that St. Pete Pride is offering support to Tampa organizers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that we have to do this together,\u201d Green-Calisch said, saying his organization will lock arms and build coalitions to support Tampa organizers however it can. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to set up a Pride organization quickly. We want to be able to use our relationships with stakeholders to pull any organizers into these conversations to make sure there is a Pride celebration in the city of Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Tampa Pride board member Mark Eary is also joining the efforts to advise other organizers, bringing his experience as the nonprofit\u2019s parade organizer for nine years. He left the board in 2023 out of frustration with leadership\u2019s failed promises to bring in more diverse board members. Now, he\u2019s hoping to make that difference with new community leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like younger, more energetic people. They have great ideas,\u201d Eary said. \u201cNew leadership needs to be a little more open and all-inclusive. That\u2019s the only way it\u2019s going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Eary told CL that he believed Tampa Pride\u2019s previous leadership \u201cled to the demise\u201d of sponsors<\/a> to fund next year\u2019s parade.<\/p>\n In its hiatus announcement, Tampa Pride also said it wouldn\u2019t renew Carrie West\u2019s contract as president. CL previously reported that West paid himself a quarter of the nonprofit\u2019s 2024 budget, and paid his husband who was supposed to be off the board.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting for it to fold,\u201d Eary told CL regarding Tampa Pride. \u201cI knew it couldn\u2019t keep sustaining the president\u2019s salary of over $100,000 a year.\u201d<\/p>\n Eary is confident in the community\u2019s ability to pull off a Pride celebration next year.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t foresee a parade, but there are other events we can do,\u201d Eary said. \u201cWe just need to get everybody on board.\u201d<\/p>\n West responds<\/p>\n Rosine said Tampa Pride\u2019s insinuation that it was losing grants and sponsors because of anti-DEI initiatives is false and hurtful to the efforts of other LGBTQ+ organizations.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do everything within my power to dispel that rumor,\u201d Rosine said. \u201cCarrie West is the sole reason that the nonprofit failed. He did not do the work he needed to procure donations with leaders who are now talking to organizations that will be at this meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n In a conversation with CL, West denied accusations of mismanagement. Tampa Pride\u2019s two remaining board members, vice president Derek Durum and treasurer Howard Grater, declined CL\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a board and we have directors\u2026 we have a good transparency record,\u201d West told CL. \u201cThere\u2019s things we\u2019re always working on and trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he\u2019s still paying bills from the parade and festival in March, and struggling to make up the losses of sponsors who pulled out\u2014an issue other Pride organizations have faced locally and nationwide<\/a>. Some organizations, local and national, asked for their money back, including a \u201cbig bank,\u201d West said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome had already been threatened, some had already been approached by organizational politics and told to not help any LGBTQ or Pride,\u201d West said. \u201cThey are not to really be supportive of DEI items.\u201d<\/p>\n West also said Tampa Pride\u2019s hiatus was due to grants falling through, including the National Endowment for the Arts<\/a>. This was the first year since at least 2021 that Tampa Pride did not apply for Hillsborough County\u2019s FYE 2026 Special Event Partnership Grant Funding\u2014which provided nearly $70,000 in 2025 and $84,000 in 2022. The application deadline was July 11.<\/p>\n When asked why he didn\u2019t apply, West said the county grant wouldn\u2019t have been allowed to get funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA only prohibits other federal grants, not local government funding. West did not respond to requests to clarify.<\/p>\n In response to outrage that he paid himself a quarter of Tampa Pride\u2019s 2024 budget, West said that he was taking back pay for previous years where he did not get his usual $80,000 salary. Tax documents show<\/a> West made between $31,000 and $48,000 from 2015-2017.<\/p>\n \u201cI get a bonus if I reach about a certain amount of clients coming through,\u201d West added.<\/p>\n Eary called West\u2019s claim for backpay \u201cbullcrap,\u201d citing conditions placed on the director\u2019s salary when he was on the board. \u201cMaybe they made some stipulation the last year or so after I resigned, but I kind of doubt that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n West also responded to those upset that his husband, Mark Bias, was being paid after leaving the board in 2022 for controversial comments. Bias was paid $6,200 as a key employee, which West said was compensation for building storage areas for parade supplies and directing parts of the parade as a non-board member. Though West also said he and Bias hosted board meetings a few times a month at their home.<\/p>\n Though he formed Tampa Pride officially in 2014, West has been an entrepreneur and advocate for LGBTQ+ community for four decades. But he won\u2019t be president of Tampa Pride again, he said, and the board will soon start its search for a new president.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have somebody else,\u201d West said. \u201cI think that there are quality people.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n This article appears in Oct. 9-15, 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t