As the driving force behind Silicon Valley Pride, Nicole Altamirano is a beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community, tirelessly advocating for their rights. Her name, Nicole, meaning ‘victory of the people’ in Greek, is a testament to her unwavering strength, leadership, and resilience.
How she came to be one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent queer spokespeople and in charge of the valley’s largest LGBTQ+ event is a tale of her yearning to make a difference and being mentored by a hero whom she met one rainy night. Along the way, she had to part with the Jehovah’s Witnesses when she came out as a lesbian as a teenager.
Altamirano was born in San Jose in 1981. Her father is a San Jose native, and her mother, Dr. Eleana Hernandez, relocated with her family from Corpus Christi, Texas, when she was a child.
Altamirano’s mother came from humble beginnings, working in the fields in Texas with her extended family. She instilled in her daughter the drive to be a community advocate. She worked alongside Cesar Chavez and the Black Panthers in their quest for equality and was an organizer of the Chicano movement.
Altamirano admires her mother for continuing her education while raising her children. She was the first in her family to attend college, eventually earning two master’s and a doctorate degree.
“She was an advocate for the minority and the marginalized,” Altamirano said. “So, I had a desire to protest and to speak my mind when it came to anything that was inequitable. She’s the one who gave me the drive to do what I do for the community.”
Altamirano’s parents were divorced when she was four but her father remained involved in their lives. She has four siblings, including her gay brother and identical lesbian twin sister Athena.
Although her family was lower to middle class, Altamirano’s mother wanted her daughters to be well educated, enrolling them in a private Christian school in Morgan Hill.
“My sister and I were the only brown ones,” Altamirano said, adding their friend Flora was the only Black student. “I remember growing up and thinking that I wish my skin were lighter; I would scrub my skin and hope my skin would turn lighter.”
Altamirano recalls interacting with girls differently as a child and kissing girls at age 6 or 10.
“My first kiss was with a girl, not a boy,” she said, “but I never thought anything different of it.”
It was in high school that the “light bulb went off,” and she realized she was a lesbian. At 17, she had her first girlfriend. “I knew that I was very much interested in her as something more than a friend,” Altamirano said. “There was never a moment when I said, oh, wait a second, this is wrong. I shouldn’t be a lesbian, but it made perfect sense. I want to be with women.”
While Altamirano’s family was not Jehovah’s Witnesses, she had learned about the religion from a boyfriend. She enjoyed studying the Bible and studied it in Greek and Hebrew. Her new 21-year-old girlfriend was her Bible student.
Altamirano knew she needed to come out in order to live her truth. She didn’t want to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses but felt being honest with her church leaders was the right thing to do.
“If you’re telling me I can’t get into eternity in heaven because I sleep with women, you might as well kick me out,” she said.
They told her being gay was wrong and asked her to leave. Despite this, she never felt any shame about her sexual orientation. Her parents were more understanding. “I really felt the love from them,” she said.
After she and her girlfriend broke up, she was in another relationship for almost 20 years. She is now happily engaged to Stepanie Denson. They live in the Bay Area with her 4-year-old son. They are looking forward to being married in the spring of 2025.
Altamirano held many jobs through the years, from working at a café and being a bank teller. In 2010, she started working for the City of San José as an Office Specialist in the Membership Department at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. Her numerous skills became evident to City Hall managers as she climbed the career ladder as a senior office specialist, then secured a job as an administrative assistant for Jennifer McGuire, then the budget director and now the city manager. This allowed to know other top administrators and politicians in the city, including then-mayor Sam Liccardo.
Next, Altamirano worked as an analyst in the budget office, managing accounts for the San Jose Fire Department, Human Resources, Finance Department, and City Attorney’s office. “I was in charge of a budget portfolio of about $550 million, and when I tell you there was no work-life balance, I mean it,” she laughed. Today, she is the budget analyst for the San Jose Fire Department.
Although she could have never foreseen it, her City Hall jobs and connections were just what Silicon Valley Pride needed to expand at a critical time. In return, Pride fulfilled her desire to give back to the community in a more substantial way.
Involvement in Silicon Valley Pride
Her involvement with Pride came about when she attended the first Women’s March in 2016. “I remember showing up thinking it was going to be another little tiny rally in San Jose, but there were 20,000 people there.”
After listening to the keynote speaker, Shay Franco-Clausen, Altamirano felt compelled to get more involved but didn’t know how. “It was an amazing experience,” she said. “I knew I needed to do something. It was burning a hole in my spirit.”
Fate intervened one rainy night later that year when she met Thaddeus Campbell in front of the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center and her life was forever changed. Altamirano’s brother Timothy Marshall, who was active in the gay community, was friends with Campbell and connected them when he learned the organization was looking for new board members.
Altamirano told Campbell of her desire to be involved and make a difference.
After an in-depth conversation, Campbell suggested Altamirano take on the role of chief operations officer for Silicon Valley Pride. “I remember thinking that I didn’t know what I was doing and was flying by the seat of my pants.”
In addition to Altamirano and Campbell, the two other board members were CFO Robert Peabody and Chief Marketing Officer Saldy Suriban. They worked well as a team, taking Pride’s finances from $40,000 in debt in 2017 to an operating budget of $500,000.
Following Campbell’s death in 2019, Altamirano became interim CEO and, in 2021, CEO. “Thaddeus is an irreplaceable leader, and I miss him dearly,” Altamirano said.
To preserve his memory, she established the Thaddeus Orlando Campbell Scholarship Fund for queer students ages 18+. In addition, Altamirano is determined to have a Ferris wheel dedicated in his name at Pride next year, something that Campbell always wanted.
“I’m just proud to keep his legacy going and his dream alive,” she said.
To learn more about the Thaddeus Orlando Campbell scholarship, go to www.svpride.com/scholarship
This year’s theme
The first gay rights rally in San Jose was in 1975. In 1976, the community celebrated its first San Jose Pride Festival and in 1977, its first Pride parade. In 2014, San Jose Pride became Silicon Valley to include neighboring cities and encourage unity. Next year, 2025, will be a milestone as Silicon Valley celebrates its 50th anniversary.
This year’s Pride theme is “Get Loud.”
“Get loud and protest,” Altamirano said with a big smile. “Get loud and speak up. If you see somebody being mistreated, speak up. If you see bigotry, homophobia, or transphobia, speak up and get loud. We still have a long way to go. We can’t tire.”
“It’s dismantling those bigoted roots,” she said. “It’s building a new future where we are all equal, and we all have the same rights.”
The festival will be held on August 24 and 25 at Cesar Chavez Park with a parade down Market Street on August 25.
To learn more about where all the festivals and parades have been held in San Jose, go to QueerSiliconValley.org/pride.
