The city of Coralville, Iowa has city council agendas saved on their website all the way back to 2011 that show a Pride proclamation at the first June meeting of each year.

In June 2026, the same year that community had to fight hard for a Trans Day of Visibility proclamation that the mayor refused to provide until she heard mighty feedback from constituents,  the first June city council meeting agenda was posted with no mention of Pride.

When constituents reached out to council and the mayor to inquire about the missing proclamation, they were given a number of different hoops to jump through and, after having jumped through them, the city still failed to provide an official proclamation.

The community decided instead to write a People’s Proclamation and presented the proclamation at the meeting where it was signed both by community members who gave statements of their own before council about the importance of Pride and also by audience members signing in solidarity.

Text of proclamation:

A People’s Proclamation Recognizing Pride Month in Coralville, IA

WHEREAS, Pride was born not from permission, but from resistance; not from comfort, but from the courageous insistence that LGBTQ+ people deserve to live fully, freely, safely, and joyfully; and

WHEREAS, the people know that our liberation has never been handed down from those in power, but built by those most impacted in living rooms, classrooms, bars, shelters, sidewalks, protests, chosen families, mutual aid networks, and everyday acts of care; and

WHEREAS, LGBTQ+ people in Coralville and across Iowa have continued to create beauty, belonging, art, kinship, safety, and possibility even when institutions have failed to protect us, recognize us, or tell the truth about what we are facing; and

WHEREAS, queer and trans people are not symbols to be celebrated when convenient, nor community members to be consulted only after harm has been done, but neighbors, workers, students, parents, elders, organizers, artists, healers, caregivers, and leaders whose lives and labor make this city more whole; and

WHEREAS, the strength of LGBTQ+ communities has never been measured only by survival, but by our capacity to imagine otherwise: to make homes where we were told we did not belong, to build families beyond narrow definitions, to turn grief into action, and to insist on joy as a practice of freedom; and

WHEREAS, Coralville’s LGBTQ+ residents and allies deserve more than symbolic recognition; they deserve public leadership that is courageous, accountable, and willing to stand with queer and trans people when it is politically difficult, not only when it is ceremonial; and

WHEREAS, LGBTQ+ liberation asks us to tell the truth about the ground we stand on, who has been allowed to belong, who has been displaced, whose stories have been honored, and whose harms have been ignored– knowing that freedom must be collective or it is not freedom at all; and

WHEREAS, Pride asks more of a city than rainbow language. Pride asks for material commitments to safety, dignity, housing, healthcare, education, bodily autonomy, public participation, and freedom from discrimination for all LGBTQ+ people, especially those most targeted by state violence, racism, transphobia, ableism, poverty, policing, and exclusion; and

WHEREAS, the people know that it has always been us who save us, not because those in power are absolved of responsibility, but because our communities have long understood how to care for one another when systems refuse to;

WHEREAS, we honor the LGBTQ+ people who stayed, those who left to survive, those who are still deciding, those who are exhausted, those who are afraid, those who are organizing, those who are resting, and those who are making life possible for others every day; and

WHEREAS, we refuse a Pride that is only palatable, polite, or performative, and instead claim a Pride rooted in truth-telling, collective care, defiant joy, and the belief that every LGBTQ+ person deserves not merely to be included, but to flourish;

NOW, THEREFORE, whether or not those in power find the courage to meet this moment, we, the people, proclaim Pride in Coralville as an act of love, resistance, memory, and accountability. We proclaim that LGBTQ+ people have always belonged here. We proclaim that our joy is not up for debate. We proclaim that our safety is not a courtesy. And we proclaim that the future of this community will be shaped not by the silence of institutions, but by the courage, care, and imagination of the people.

Proclaimed this Ninth Day of June, 2026. 

Signed, 

The people of Coralville and Surrounding Communities

LGBTQ+ Residents, Families, Friends, Neighbors, and Allies