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Though Pride month is here, unfortunately, it’s become a lot quieter. Fewer performative logos are changing, support is more difficult to find (though community and campaign inclusive is still being taken advantage of).

As a queer womxn-owned company, we lead with that identity because it is true. It is not a seasonal costume for us. This year, though, Pride feels heavier. Queer and trans people are not being debated in theory. Our right to live is being politically attacked. Pride is happening in a climate where visibility still matters, but visibility alone does not carry enough weight.

So I’ve been asking myself a harder question:

What does it actually mean to be a queer company right now?

As a queer founder, there is deep joy in building something that did not ask permission to exist. We started in the queer community out on Riis Beach, servicing and connecting with patrons. As we grew, we’ve gone on to support several local queer fundraisers, such as Stand Up Benefit NYC. And just last year, we worked with queer community members on our Keep Pride Alive campaign, raising $10k for several participating non-profits. Regularly, we collaborate with fellow queer businesses, organizations, and creators to maintain values-aligned relationships that are not one-off or seasonal, but part of our ongoing responsibility to show up for queer community.

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Being a queer company isn’t just being queer owned it’s being in queer company.

At SASS, we celebrate Queerness in all of its profoundness, from parading to politicking to profiting. For us, Queer company and identity are mutually inclusive; they are intertwined, they are intersectional. Where we find our nuance, our “niche” is at the intersection of chocolate, nootropics, cannabis, plant medicine, pleasure, and care. These industries are not neutral.

• Chocolate carries a history of extraction and colonialism, born from the hands of people who are often far removed from the final luxury product.
• Wellness and nootropics often borrow from traditional plant knowledge, Indigenous practices, and non-Western healing systems, while repackaging them for more privileged consumers.
• Cannabis has its own deeply racialized history. Communities were, and still are, criminalized for the same plant that now gets celebrity brands, and curated retail experiences.
  
  

So when we say I say SASS is queer, I also have to ask: Queer for whom?

I am a queer founder. I am also white-presenting. It affects the kinds of risk I can take, how I am perceived, and when I am given the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of my lived experience, I still have to be honest about the ways proximity to whiteness can create access. That, too, is a significant aspect of SASS’s Queen ownership and we have to be honest about that.

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Queer culture is not only white, coastal, femme, trendy, or easy to sell. Queer community is Black. Brown. Indigenous. Immigrants. Disabled. Trans. Working class. Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Fat. Neurodivergent. Undocumented. Rural. Religious. Estranged. Surviving.

A queer business that does not make room for those realities is still falling short. I do not want our queerness to become a shield that keeps us from being challenged on our intersectionalities.

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Who is being paid?

Who is being protected?

Who is being invited in?

Who is leading and who is deciding?

Who is centered when no one is watching?

Who benefits from the culture we partake in, build with, or profit from?

Who is excluded from the rooms where power is held?

Who gets to feel safe enough to rest, celebrate, desire, and exist?

We are still a small company. That does not excuse us from responsibility, but it does shape what we can do honestly and sustainably. So instead of making a vague Pride statement, I want to name the direction we are moving and continuing to move in.

We want to build deeper creative and community partnerships with queer and trans creators, especially BIPOC queer creatives, educators, herbalists, artists, organizers, and community workers.

We want to be more intentional about where our money goes during Pride and beyond Pride.

We want to keep examining how chocolate, cannabis, and wellness can repeat patterns of extraction, but can also become tools for repair, and ethical pleasure.

We want to keep learning in public without making our learning someone else’s unpaid labor or a cause for concern.

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If that’s you, don’t ever hesitate to hit us up!

None of this means Pride should only feel heavy. Dancing is necessary. Laughing is necessary - and if you know me, you know I have a loud ass laugh. Joy is still necessary (especially now). So I hope all the ladies, gays, and gentle-theys are doing just that.

To our community.
To the people who came before us.
To the people most at risk right now.
To the people still looking for a place where they can be fully seen.
Thank you for being SASSY with us.

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