LGBTQ+ Pride Month’s History and Evolution

June 2, 2022

By R. Garzone

Over the last 50 years, June has been the month for the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate their identities and protest social injustices.

Pride, as we know it today, was shaped by the Stonewall Uprising. In 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City. Officers forcibly arrested gay men, gay women and transgender people, which led to riots.

Demonstrations and violent encounters with law enforcement lasted for six days outside of the bar to protest the routine police raids in gay-friendly establishments around Greenwich Village. After that, an annual tradition began.

The first official Pride parade was on June 28, 1970, marking the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. The United States originally used the last Sunday in June as “Gay Pride Day” to commemorate the riots.

In 1999 and 2000, President Bill Clinton declared the month of June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”. Later in 2009, President Barack Obama declared June “LGBT Pride Month” and recognized it every year he was in office.

The Stonewall riots were the catalyst for a widespread gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. Today, many countries have their own form of celebrating Pride.

The main, and most recognizable, symbol of the Pride movement is a rainbow flag created in 1978. The flag represents diversity within the community and t

o denote the wide spectrum of gender and sexuality.

In 2018, the “Progress Pride flag” started being utilized, which still celebrates diversity, but also calls for a more inclusive society.

Even though Pride is viewed as a parade of identity for the LGBTQ+ community, which it is to some degree, it is primarily a reminder of the injustices faced by the community, most famously at Stonewall.

Some cities have renamed their events to reflect Pride as a protest, such as Alternative Pride, the Queer Liberation March, or Reclaim Pride.

Leaders of gay and lesbian organizations want to remind people that Pride is a political protest before anything else and that there is still a long way to go before there is equality.

Because of the growing awareness of Pride across the globe, popular corporations started releasing LGBTQ+ collections in June in support of the gay community.

This is also a concern for LGBT organization leaders, there is a prominent worry that this will sway people into thinking that Pride

is materialistic and a party rather than a protest.

Protesters in many cities want to remind the general public that it is not just about rainbow socks, but radical change.