It's me, Annie, again — Peak Design's Sustainability Director.

This past weekend, Pride was celebrated across the globe, honoring the LGBTQ+ community and decades of tireless activism. It's a particularly colorful and joyful weekend here in San Francisco.

But instead of joining the celebration, I found myself quietly reflecting about where we are today and how far we have to go. This came largely after reading comments from an Instagram post by Chaco featuring the fabulous Pattie Gonia. Pattie is the world's first backpacking drag queen whose mission it is to bring "inclusivity, positivity, and heels into the outdoors." Comments garnered by a picture that Chaco posted of Pattie sporting their sandals included things like: "Please just stop you faggot", "This is horrific - never buying your stuff again", and "Can y'all just make shoes and not shove gay down all of our throats."

Pattie is a friend and inspiration to everyone here at Peak Design. Seeing the ignorant hateful responses and learning about the direct threats made to Pattie not only angered and saddened me, but also made it startling clear how alive and well homophobia is in this country. It burst my San Francisco love-is-love bubble.

Being a straight white woman of privilege, I will never be able to fully understand the pain, fear and anger that many people of color and LGBTQ+ people experience on a daily basis. Unlike them, I can choose to think or not think about equality issues. When I feel interested, I can get involved. When I’m too busy or tired, I can check out and “deal with it” later. People of color and the LGBTQ+ community can never “deal with it later.” For them, it is now and always.

Personally, I’ve found my inaction tied to several causes, one being that I’m scared about saying something wrong or doing something I think is helpful but is ill-conceived (which I’ve done). Or there are common corporate excuses like, “Diversity is important but not a priority;” or “We’re already a tolerant inclusive company — we don’t need to do anything more.”

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