Tampa Pride president Carrie West (left) at the diversity parade on March 30, 2025. Credit: Dave Decker

Tampa Pride celebrated its 11th LGTBQ+ diversity parade in Ybor City this year. The group won’t celebrate a 12th—at least not in 2026. 

The organization announced a one-year hiatus of events Friday. The announcement came with news that Tampa Pride would also not renew the contract of its founder, Carrie West.

Tampa Pride’s board blamed politics.

The social media post, formatted as a letter from the board dated Aug. 1, cited  “the current political and economic climate, including challenges with corporate sponsorships, reductions in county, state and federal grant funding, and the discontinuation of DEI programs under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

It’s not the first time Pride has shut down events and blamed DeSantis. Shortly after West’s husband, Mark Bias, was ousted from leadership in 2022 over comments about the trans community, the nonprofit announced the cancellation of Pride on the River. West told media outlets that DeSantis’ anti-drag laws were to blame, but former board members said there was simply no manpower to pull off an event.

At the time, several board members were ousted or quit due to issues with West.

Tampa Pride’s board consisted of West as president, Derek Durum as vice president and Howard Grater as treasurer, as of an April Sunbiz filing. They have not yet responded to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s request for comment.

Last year, West was paid $115,600 of Tampa Pride’s reported $457,985 budget, according to a December tax filing.

Bias, who was supposed to be off the board in 2022, was paid $6,200 as a key employee.

West recently ran in the special election for Tampa City Council’s District 5 seat, and did not make the runoff after earning just under 2% of the vote.

It’s unclear if another organization or entity will step up to host a Pride event in Tampa this spring.

As the board alluded to in its letter, local arts and DEI programs are being defunded. Nonprofit Creative Pinellas was just defunded, and community radio station WMNF Tampa was forced to hold an emergency fundraiser after cuts at the state and federal level. Over Labor Day weekend, both Tampa and St. Petersburg officials complied with FDOT orders to take down street murals, including rainbow crosswalks.

A City of Tampa spokesperson didn’t immediately respond for comment.

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This article appears in Sept. 18-24, 2025.

Selene San Felice is managing editor of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Prior to joining CL in 2025, she started the Axios Tampa Bay newsletter and worked for her hometown paper, The Capital in Annapolis,...