🏳️🌈 Why We Pride: A Reminder This June 🌈
Every June, rainbow flags fly, brands slap on slogans, and the phrase “Happy Pride!” echoes across timelines and storefronts. But in the haze of glitter, parades, and corporate hashtags, too many people forget — or are never taught — what Pride really is, where it came from, and why it still matters.
This isn’t just a celebration.
✊ Pride Was Born From Resistance
The first Pride wasn’t a party. It was a riot.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police stormed the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. Raids like this were common — queer people, especially trans women and drag queens, were harassed, beaten, arrested simply for existing. But that night, something snapped.
Led by Black and brown trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the queer community fought back. Bottles were thrown. Windows were shattered. People screamed, resisted, demanded to be seen and heard.
Stonewall wasn’t the first act of queer defiance — the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966 came earlier — but it ignited a movement. And in 1970, the first “Pride” march was held to commemorate the uprising.
When people say “keep politics out of Pride,” they show they’ve forgotten — or erased — what this month really means.
Pride is political because our identities have always been politicized. Because:
• Being queer has been criminalized.
• Being trans is still under legislative attack.
• Loving openly could once get you fired, arrested, institutionalized, or worse — and in many places, it still can.
• Black, brown, disabled, immigrant, low-income, and trans members of our community still face disproportionate violence, homelessness, and systemic neglect.
You can’t separate Pride from politics because Pride is survival in the face of oppression. It’s a refusal to go back into hiding. It’s a raised fist in the air that says:
I’m still here. And I deserve to be.
🏳️⚧️ Pride Must Be Intersectional
We don’t get to have a Pride that erases the people who built this movement.
It was trans women of color — not politicians or CEOs — who threw the first bricks.
It was queer people living in poverty, sex workers, runaways, people with HIV/AIDS, and chosen families who risked everything to demand change.
If your Pride doesn’t include:
• Trans and nonbinary people
• Working-class and homeless LGBTQ+ folks
…then your Pride is performative. It’s empty.
True Pride is intersectional or it is nothing at all.
🧠 Know the Names. Know the Struggle.
Say their names — not just during Pride but always:
• Bayard Rustin : Black gay civil rights leader who organized the March on Washington in 1963.
• Miss Major Griffin-Gracy : Trans elder and prison abolitionist.
• Audre Lorde : Black lesbian feminist writer and warrior poet.
• Barbara Gittings : The mother of the LGBT civil rights movement.
• Brenda Howard : Helped organize the first Pride March.
These aren’t just historical figures. They’re the foundation. Without them, Pride wouldn’t exist. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.
✊ LGBTQ+ Rights We Still Have to Fight For in 2025
1. Trans healthcare access
2. Ending conversion therapy
3. Protection for queer youth in schools
4. Safe asylum for LGBTQ+ refugees
5. Ending the criminalization of queer people globally
6. Real protections for BIPOC queer folks
10. Ending police brutality and state violence
✊ Pride isn’t a finish line. It’s a frontline.
Every June, corporations put rainbows on their logos. But where are they when:
• Anti-trans bills are passed?
• Queer employees face workplace discrimination?
• Their donations support anti-LGBTQ+ politicians?
Rainbow capitalism is real. Pride is not for profit. It’s not a marketing opportunity. It’s a movement. It’s radical. It’s rooted in resistance, not rebranding.
Support companies that uplift queer voices year-round — not ones that vanish on July 1.
This Pride, don’t just celebrate.
Educate. Reflect. Resist. Remember.
Remember the ones who came before.
Remember those who didn’t survive.
Remember the youth still in unsafe homes.
Remember those living in fear, silence, and shame.
Remember that we are not free until everyone in our community is free.
Pride is joy, yes — but it’s also grief. It’s anger. It’s fire. It’s love weaponized against hate.
So this June, be loud. Be unapologetic. Be informed.
Not just in rainbow — but in remembrance.
Not just in celebration — but in solidarity.
Because Pride was — and still is — a protest. And we’re not done fighting yet.
