If Christiana Remington, founder of Butterfly Productions, has it her way she will be on a decked out float jammin' down Market Street this Sunday in honor of being one of this year's grand marshals.
The club promoter, who produces Butta, Mo' Butta – which became an official San Francisco Pride event in 2005 – Sistah Sundays, and the Mantequilla family of clubs under the moniker Butterfly Productions, was overwhelmed by being selected as a grand marshal by the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee this year. She has had a hard time wrapping her mind around the honor being bestowed on her.
"It really means a lot to me, it really does and it's going to mean a lot to other people," said Remington, 42, a lesbian who works as an at-risk family specialist and birth educator for First 5 Contra Costa.
Mariah Hanson, promoter of The Dinah, agreed. "I'm happy to see San Francisco Pride is honoring one of our own," wrote Hanson in an email.
"Honoring a club promoter, especially one that has served to bridge such important gaps in the Bay Area by promoting diversity and community, through music and dance, is long overdue," Hanson added. "Club promoters are unsung heroes. It's not an easy job but it is a critical one in creating that early sense of community and belonging."
Always the club kid, Remington danced for queer women party promoter the late Chantal Salkey, and others throughout the 1990s. Then she took a break from the party scene for a bit only to find that it changed when she returned.
"I realized that there was something missing. I was going to different places and I wasn't really having the same time that I had," said Remington, a community activist for more than 15 years who also co-produces the Soul of Pride stage at San Francisco Pride. "I feel like the women of color were not being really represented at some of these clubs."
To fill the void, Remington stepped into the promoter ring with the support of Hanson, who hosted Remington's first club, Strapped, at her former club Cherry Bar.
"It was a great way to kind of get my feet wet," said Remington, about the club that lasted for about a year until Cherry Bar closed its doors.
After her stint in San Francisco, Remington, a Berkeley and San Leandro native, returned to the East Bay where she launched Butta on the third Sunday of every month in Oakland. Butta, modeled after the popular Mango at El Rio in San Francisco and Remington's own house parties, has attracted anywhere between 600 and 800 women monthly, she said.
The success of the club didn't come without its challenges. Finding a space that welcomed queer women of color was difficult, Remington said. The next challenge was working with the date and time frame the club allotted. But the biggest and most painful obstacle was the prejudice and racism in the LGBT community, she said.
Butta was labeled a "black party," a "ghetto party," and more, said Remington. "It just hurt me so much because it was just a beautiful party. Just because it's predominantly more of one color there doesn't mean that it's that ... it's unfortunate that we have that in our own community."
Remington's aim was to create a space for queer black women, but also a place that welcomed everyone.
"I'm not afraid to say that definitely I want women of color to have this space," said Remington, adding the caveat that color to her not only meant black, but "everything."
"I wanted it to be a place where it didn't matter who you know or what you look like, you just fit in," Remington said.
Remington found the strength within herself with the support of her family, especially her sister, who is also a lesbian, and friends to believe in what she was doing and hold true to her vision, she said.
The racial clatter finally died down after a while and the labels fell away from Butta.
"It really became a place for everybody who just really fell in love with it," said Remington, who believes it's her biggest community success and gift to queer women, "that's been my real signature."
Personally, her "biggest success" is being a mother to her four children and two stepdaughters with her fiancee, Venus Jones.
Remington encourages other women to rise up to party and create spaces for queer women to gather. "We need a number of women's parties. We need strong women to keep this going ... there's not enough of us," she said.
To learn more, visit www.butterflyproductions.org.