The inclusion moment at NYC Pride 2026.
Why this year of Pride matters.
NYC Pride 2026 lands on June 28 — exactly 57 years to the day after the Stonewall Uprising. The parade traces back to that night.
At the center of that night was Marsha P. Johnson — a Black trans woman, drag performer, activist, co-founder of STAR. Marsha fought for queer people to exist in every facet of life: public space, healthcare, family, art, community. She is one of the people who made the queer existence we have today possible at all.
In 2026, the rights Marsha fought for are under attack again. Over 700 anti-trans bills are active in state legislatures this session. Local Prides are being cancelled or defunded. The community Marsha built for is being asked, again, to defend its right to exist publicly.
NYC Pride 2026 is being shaped as a remembering of Marsha. Not a memorial — a continuation.
She & HER — built by who Marsha built for.
I'm Desirée Mayon — founder and CEO of She & HER, a sapphic-led tech company building digital infrastructure for sapphic community. I spent 15 years in product and data at Google, Microsoft, and Cambridge before founding She & HER. We're a partner of NYC Pride for 2026.
She & HER is built by sapphic women, for sapphic women — explicitly inclusive of trans queer women, in name, in product, in voice. We're building the digital infrastructure for the community Marsha built the public infrastructure for.
And we're inviting Fenty into the room — because the inclusivity DNA at the core of your brand and the core of ours is the same DNA.
The DNA is the same DNA.
A row of foundation shades. The point is not the swatches; the point is what they refuse to leave out.
A She & HER lounge at Stage Fest.
The middle space, where everyone gets matched.
The middle space between the influencer red carpet (Go Magazine doing interviews) and the Red Bull–sponsored backstage. The natural gathering point of the day — where everyone passes through to rest, recharge, touch up between the two adrenaline zones.
The vanity station with the full shade range is what makes the lounge actually serve everyone who walks through:
- Couches, throw rugs, good lighting, fans, popsicles, shaded cover
- Full Fenty shade range available at the vanity — foundation, lip, skin
- Setup window 8–10am morning of, with storage at NYC Pride's office overnight
- Influencers, VIPs, press, performers, parade-goers pass through all day
The lounge serving everyone who walks through isn't just nice — it's the proof of what the brand says about itself. Fenty makes that proof visible.
Three options. You self-select.
If this lands, where it could go.
The Stage Fest lounge is the entry point. If it lands well, we'd love to expand the relationship into a co-produced editorial series on Black queer founders + Black-led brands + the work of inclusion in beauty and tech. The kind of work that earns press coverage that doesn't feel transactional.
A 2027 extension — Disney Sapphic Day on National Lesbian Day 2027 is already confirmed for She & HER. UK Pride 2027 and Amsterdam Pride 2027 are also confirmed. Fenty as a Founding Brand Partner across the multi-year footprint is the next door if the first opens well.
Meet Desirée.
"Marsha P. Johnson built the public infrastructure for queer community. We're building the digital one."
Desirée Mayon is a Black queer technologist who spent 15 years building production systems at Google (Fuchsia & Privacy & Security), Microsoft (Xbox), and Cambridge University (SupTech Lab) — shipping ML models, running $80M+ business lines, and building regulated data systems for cross-institutional research.
She founded She & HER to take that operator rigor and apply it to digital infrastructure sapphic community has been missing: a platform built by sapphic women, for sapphic women, explicitly inclusive of trans queer women. In name, in product, in voice.
The full-circle thesis isn't a metaphor. She's the kind of person the work Marsha started in 1969 was meant to make possible — and now she's the one carrying it forward in the language Marsha couldn't have built in: code, data, platform infrastructure, brand voice.
The next conversation.
What we'd love from Fenty in the next two weeks: a 30-minute call between Desi and the right person on your brand partnerships team. The goal is alignment on which option fits — and a clear path to lock the vanity placement by early June so we can build the lounge with Fenty in mind.
Decision timing: ideally by early June for buildout runway.
To set the call: reply to desiree@sheandher.io or forward this to the right person on your team — either route works.