Pride Means Belonging You Can Live In
Proud to celebrate Pride with the community and the Gender Equity Resource Center. Representation matters, and I’m running to help make sure every neighbor has a seat at the table. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
Pride should be joyful.
It should be music, color, chosen family, public celebration, and the relief of being able to show up as yourself without apology.
But Pride also has to mean something after the parade ends.
On June 28, 2026, I marched at the San Francisco Pride Parade with UC Berkeley community members and people from across the Bay Area. It was a reminder that visibility still matters. People need to see that they are not alone. They need to see that public life belongs to them too.
But visibility cannot be the whole promise.
Pride has to mean that LGBTQ+ people can afford to stay in Berkeley. It has to mean that queer and trans students can walk home safely at night. It has to mean that unhoused LGBTQ+ neighbors are treated with dignity. It has to mean that public space belongs to the people who gather, rest, organize, grieve, celebrate, and build community there.
A city cannot call itself welcoming if belonging only exists in slogans.
For me, Pride is personal, but it is also practical. As a nonbinary Black candidate running to represent District 7, I know representation matters. I also know representation is not enough by itself. The question is what our city does with that recognition.
Does Berkeley protect people's ability to live here?
Does it keep public spaces safe, clean, accessible, and usable?
Does it make sure growth comes with stability, services, and accountability?
Does it listen to the people most affected before decisions are already made?
Those are Pride questions too.
In Southside, these questions show up every day. They show up in housing costs, street lighting, sidewalk conditions, public restroom access, safety at night, and whether students, renters, workers, small business owners, unhoused residents, and long-term neighbors are treated as part of the same community.
Pride should not be reduced to a once-a-year statement. It should shape how we govern.
That means defending public space as civic infrastructure. It means supporting housing that lets people stay. It means taking street safety seriously. It means reducing unnecessary burdens on small businesses that help hold neighborhoods together. It means making City Hall easier to work with, especially for people who are already tired of navigating systems that were not built with them in mind.
It also means refusing the idea that care is symbolic.
A clean sidewalk matters. A working restroom matters. A safe route home matters. A tenant being able to renew a lease matters. A young person being able to gather with friends without being treated as a problem matters. A public meeting where residents are actually heard matters.
This is the kind of city government I believe in: practical, accountable, and rooted in the daily lives of the people it serves.
Pride reminds us that people fought for the right to be visible. Now the work is making sure visibility comes with real safety, real stability, and real belonging.
I am running for City Council because District 7 deserves leadership that understands Southside from the inside and shows up for the people who make this neighborhood what it is.
That includes LGBTQ+ residents, students, workers, tenants, artists, organizers, unhoused neighbors, and everyone who deserves to live openly without being pushed out, ignored, or treated as temporary.
This Pride, I am thinking about the Berkeley we can build when belonging is not just something we say.
It is something people can feel on their block, in their housing, in their public spaces, and in the way City Hall responds when they ask for help.
If that is the kind of Berkeley you believe in, I hope you will join this campaign.
Paid for by Aidan Hill for Berkeley City Council 2026, FPPC ID# 1481885.
Welcome to UC Berkeley!
One of my favorite moments from Pride! Community, joy, and showing up for one another are what this movement is all about. Thanks to everyone who stopped to say hello. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
