What's at stake:
After Fresno County declared "nuclear family" month during Pride Month, many Fresno residents have spoken out, arguing the declaration targets LGBTQ+ and other nontraditional families while distracting from pressing issues affecting children and families.
Carissa and Sarah Trujillo sat with their 16-month-old daughter, rainbow bows tied into her hair, as they posed for family portraits at Maarte on the last day of Pride Month. The photo session, organized by local photographer, Kiana Hernandez, was more than a celebration.
For the Trujillos, it was a public declaration that they belong in Fresno and have no intention of leaving despite a recent Fresno County resolution that they say deliberately excludes LGBTQ+ families.
The resolution, created by Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, established June as “nuclear family month” in Fresno County. The resolution, which goes out of its way to exclude LGBTQ+ families, comes as a formal rebuke of the nation’s Pride Month, which officially has been held in June since 1999. The resolution includes single-parent families, grandparents raising grandchildren, foster families or stepfamilies.
Bredefeld’s original resolution declared a family of one husband and one wife “God’s perfect design,” and accused LGBTQ+ groups of “promoting gender mutilation.” The amended resolution passed on a 3-2 vote. Supervisors Luis Chavez and Brian Pacheco refused to support it.
In an interview Monday with Fresnoland, Bredefeld acknowledged LGBTQ+ families were deliberately excluded from the resolution, but disputed the idea that it was discriminatory, arguing that Pride Month itself is prejudicial.
He argued that when LGBTQ+ families celebrate Pride Month, “they’re discriminating against nuclear families and families that are raising their kids with traditional values.”
The Trujillos have built their life in Fresno over the past decade. Carissa, who grew up in the city before leaving for college, met Sarah in the Bay Area. Together, they eventually returned to Fresno to build a home and start a family, a journey that Carissa said came only after years of infertility struggles.
“This is our home, this is a family that we fought really hard to get to,” Carissa said. “We were able to do one round of IVF, had one embryo, and that’s our baby. We fought really hard to be here. No nuclear family idea is going to take that away from us.”
While the county resolution did not surprise her, Carissa said it deepened concerns about what it signals for LGBTQ+ residents, particularly those who are more visibly queer or trans. She describes herself as cisgender and feminine-presenting, giving her a level of privilege that she says her wife, who presents more masculinely, does not always have.
“I think about other members of our community,” Carissa said. “People stare at my wife because they’re trying to figure out if she’s a boy or a girl. My first thought was about our kids who are dealing with coming to terms with who they are, deciding whether it’s safe enough to come out and they see that news. That has a social-emotional effect on our youth.”
Carissa worries the resolution could embolden broader policy changes or restrict services that endanger LGBTQ+ residents, even in relatively accepting California.
Earlier this year, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors also prohibited libraries from participating in Pride Month displays and opposed public health officials from using budget funds to disburse safe-sex items like condoms and lubricant at last year’s Pride Month festivities.
Those efforts followed a failed effort in 2024 by the supervisors to ban books from the public library with any LGBTQ+ themes or language.
Fresno’s latest culture war fight is something of a microcosm of the national fight. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., reintroduced a resolution designating June as “Family Month” in opposition to Pride Month. The measure has at least 21 Republican co-sponsors, and similar proposals have been introduced by at least seven Republican governors. The resolution’s language describes Pride Month as “perverse” and claims that only “traditional families” should be recognized.
How the queer community is coming together
Hernandez and Christine Rose, owner of Maarte, organized the photo session in a week and a half, with contributions from the community. And the community’s swift response to the announcement of the photo project, Hernandez said, reflects a recognition that Pride has always been rooted in resistance, not celebration alone.
“The response from the community is unfortunately out of survival, but at the same time is a reflection that pride is forever, pride is ongoing, pride is not just an event, but a movement that continuously happens,” Hernandez said. “Because it started from a protest by queer black trans women, and that’s what we continue to reflect through our work.”
On the heels of Fresno County’s discriminatory resolution, Hernandez sees the project as preserving visibility in a political moment she believes is increasingly hostile toward queer communities.
“What this means is not necessarily just something that a politician has put in place, but it is a direct attack against communities,” Hernandez said. “We have to respond pretty quickly in order to make sure that our voices are being heard, that who we are in Fresno is represented.”
Before the photo session, about 20-30 people gathered for an open forum on June 23 to discuss concerns about the resolution. Speakers and attendees shared their perspectives with the goal of building connection and encouraging collective action.
Alicia Rodriguez, who spoke at the event, said it reflected a broader effort to help people feel empowered in civic spaces, particularly those who may find city or county meetings intimidating or inaccessible.
On a human level, Rodriguez said she does not need county validation for her relationships or family structure, but argued that such declarations can still be harmful at a systemic level.
“What people don’t understand, even his supporters, is that this type of decision is dangerous to everyone when they start deciding what can be in libraries and what is a legitimate family,” Rodriguez said. “They’re crossing the boundary that government never should have had a role in the first place and are deciding things when it comes to our agency.”
Rodriguez also said the resolution is not just a disagreement over values, but an argument over the government’s authority to redefine families and communities.
“Identity is becoming weaponized, rights are being stripped away,” Rodriguez said, “and folks are making structural changes that are allowing them to determine what you should, what you can and cannot do based on their preferences, and that’s dangerous to anyone.”
‘This is an old playbook’
Dr. Katherine Fobear, a professor in the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Fresno State, said the Fresno County resolution promoting the “nuclear family” is part of a much longer historical pattern of using narrowly and exclusively-defined “family ideals” to exclude marginalized communities.
“This narrative of the nuclear family has been used since the Victorian age of basically casting what family is a good family, what family is a bad family, and what policies can we do to further disenfranchise, separate, and harm what we consider the bad family,” Fobear said.
The language celebrating the nuclear family, Fobear said, mirrors arguments that have historically justified discriminatory policies, from the separation of Indigenous families to racist immigration and eugenics campaigns. She urged residents to view the resolution not only through the lens of LGBTQ+ rights but also as a broader warning about how governments can define which families deserve recognition and protection.
Fobear argued that declaring a “nuclear family” month distracts from addressing the real challenges facing Fresno families. She said county leaders should instead focus on ensuring children have enough to eat, access to affordable child care, quality schools, safe streets and parks, after-school programs and fully funded public libraries.
Bredefeld rejected criticism that the board is neglecting more pressing issues, saying supervisors address children’ s welfare, public safety, economic development and social services every day.
“We’re constantly focused on children,” Bredefeld said. “We have an audit of the Department of Social Services to make sure that all kids in the care of Fresno County are getting all of their needs met and are being handled in the most appropriate and expeditious manner possible. We spend millions of dollars on all of these issues that are dealt with all the time.”
Fobear notes that federal funding cuts in Fresno County have led to rising childcare costs and food insecurity, arguing those issues have a far greater effect on children.
Fobear encouraged voters to scrutinize not only elected officials who are supporting the resolution, but the organizations and political donors supporting them.
“We’re sick of these talking mouthpieces that all they do is spout ideas and beliefs,” Fobear said. “This is an old playbook.”
How the City of Fresno is responding to the county’s resolution
Robin McGehee, City of Fresno’s LGBTQ+ liaison, said the county’s resolution sends a harmful message to LGBTQ+ residents.
She said the proposal is a “very personalized attack,” especially following previous efforts from the Fresno County supervisors targeting Pride-related programming.
“It just makes me think about what we are telling our young people,” McGehee said. “What I hope we’re telling our young people is that we don’t just take it, that we speak out when we see things that are harmful. Young people are listening, families that have young people are listening, and we need to be the bellwether to say this is not okay, this is not how you treat other people.”
McGehee said many residents have struggled to distinguish between the actions of Fresno County and those of the City of Fresno, creating confusion about which level of government approved the resolution. Because Bredefeld previously served on the Fresno City Council before joining the supervisors last year, she said many residents continue to associate him with the city government.
McGehee said county employees have privately reached out to her expressing concerns about their workplace environment and feeling unsafe.
Rather than remaining silent, McGehee said the resolution should motivate residents to become more involved in local government.
“That means that it is up to the community to organize, have a response and stand up for their dignity and for the young people that are harmed by this rhetoric,” McGehee said. “County residents and politicians also own their own power to have a response, and not just to sit silently and let it happen, but to say, ‘I don’t want this to be a reflection of the county that I live in.’”
McGehee contrasted the county’s actions with what she described as the City of Fresno’s continued support for LGBTQ+ residents. She pointed to city funding for LGBTQ+ organizations and efforts to include city departments in Pride events, while saying county employees have told her they feel limited in their ability to engage with the community.
“I am proud to move and work for a system that is saying, ‘we may not be perfect, but we’re striving to love our neighbors as ourselves,’” McGehee said. “What I see from the other side, from this particular proclamation, is there’s an arrogance that’s connected to it without looking at your own flaws in your own ways of not serving your public.”
One recent example of city investment in LGBTQ+ organizations is the allocation of $200,000 in funding for Casita Feliz to expand culturally affirming health care, including mental health counseling and HIV prevention services through a future PrEP clinic.
Diana Feliz Oliva, founder of Casita Feliz, said the investment reduces the need for residents to travel outside the Central Valley for critical care.
“We want to be present and visible, because representation matters,” Oliva said. “If Casita Feliz can be the steward or the conduit that brings joy and liberation to Fresno brown queer people, then I want to be that vessel.”
The county’s resolution, Olivia said, helps normalize LGBTQ+ exclusion and may open the door to future policies that are less inclusive to families that don’t fit into this narrow view of what family is, in Fresno County or anywhere else.
“I think we’re seeing organic grassroots coalitions building,” Olivia said. “This is the best time to be queer in Fresno in 2026 because we’re having all these opposing forces, but these opposing forces bring all the other folks together as allies and building coalitions.”
What does ‘nuclear family month’ mean in practice?
Bredefeld, in an interview with Fresnoland on Monday, said that the resolution, “is not discriminatory at all” towards LGBTQ+ families and that “all it’s doing is recognizing nuclear families and other families, raising kids who support traditional values on raising their children in that fashion.”
Bredefeld said the resolution includes those family structures, arguing that what unites them is a commitment to traditional values and raising children with those values.
During the June 16 Board of Supervisors’ meeting, Chavez tried to include LGBTQ+ families for recognition in the resolution and that was shot down.
Bredefeld said the decision to pass the “nuclear family” resolution during Pride Month was intentional.
He emphasized that the resolution is solely intended to recognize nuclear families and that the county has no plans to hold parades, events, educational programs or other initiatives related to the designation. He said the resolution will not change county policies, funding priorities, public messaging or services.
“They have a right to have their Pride month, Pride parades, but I draw the line when it appears that they are forcing that ideology down the throats of other families that don’t support their view or the throats of young impressionable innocent children,” Bredefeld said. “Yes, it was intentional, but in no way precludes them from continuing to celebrate whatever they want to celebrate.”
