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Throughout this article it is explained the actual history of pride (and how and why it was created). This is an overall expansive explanation of pride, however I will go into further detail with other resources as I go!

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Overall, pride only exists thanks to the push for queer rights by BIPOC and POC queer folks. Throughout the push for rights, black and brown queer people advocated for their lives under the idea of intersectionality and understanding that their multiple marginalized identities allowed for them to further understand the movement and push for equality. Rather than just queer rights, it was equal rights, and we need to understand that.

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LGBTQ advocacy groups Monday hastily reoriented planned Pride Month programming, already significantly altered by the coronavirus pandemic, to address the anti-racism protests that have erupted across the United States.

In statements declaring support for #BlackLivesMatter protests against racism and police brutality, organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAAD pointed to the radical roots of the early gay rights movement. They called for solidarity with the black and brown communities and many of them cited the now-iconic uprising at New York's Stonewall Inn in June 1969, which led to the country's first Pride marches the following year, and some groups also gave a nod to the lesser-known 1966 riot at San Francisco's Compton's Cafeteria.

"Today is 6/1, the official start to #PrideMonth. But right now we are reminded that the 1st #Pride wasn't a party or celebration, it was a RIOT led by Queer POC," NCLR tweeted, referring to queer people of color.

In a Monday appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David spoke of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Nina Pop, all black people who have been killed recently, and spoke of the "countless other names and faces" of victims who are still unknown "because there was no camera." He then drew the connection between the current protests and Pride Month.

"We are celebrating Pride Month starting today, but we have to also remember Pride Month has its roots in the struggle, in protest," he said.

On Friday, more than 100 LGBTQ civil rights organizations published an open letter condemning racial violence and affirming that they "recognize we cannot remain neutral, nor will awareness substitute for action."

"We celebrate June as Pride Month, because it commemorates, in part, our resisting police harassment and brutality at Stonewall in New York City, and earlier in California, when such violence was common and expected," the letter states. "We remember it as a breakthrough moment when we refused to accept humiliation and fear as the price of living fully, freely, and authentically."

New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman, the body's only openly gay member, called for a total overhaul of planned Pride Month celebrations - most of which were already canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and tentatively replaced by a streaming event scheduled for June 27.

"This is no time for a milquetoast, corporate Pride celebration that simply celebrates the progress we've made since 1969," Hoylman wrote. "It would be unconscionable for the LGBTQ community to ignore that our black and brown neighbors are crying out for justice."

Hoylman called for Pride 2020 to be replaced by a "return to our roots," a "radical protest against bigotry, racism, homophobia, transphobia and police brutality."

The National Center for Lesbian Rights tweeted that for this year's Pride, the group "will be planning and taking part in events that have a focus on racial justice and anti-blackness, in order to help show how they are intersectional and intertwined with the #LGBTQ community."

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, a national LGBTQ advocacy group, promised that her organization will be "centering and lifting up the voices of Black LGBTQ people" this month. "There can be no Pride if it is not intersectional," she said.

The actor and activist George Takei was among the LGBTQ celebrities to speak out about the need for a shift during Pride Month.

"You cannot remain silent today and celebrate Pride tomorrow" he said, endorsing #BlackLivesMatter. "We must stand today with our black brothers and sisters."

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., a vocal LGBTQ ally, gave a nod to some of the queer movement's most iconic black and Latino activists in her call for solidarity during Pride Month.

"Because Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie, Sylvia Rivera, and countless other LGBTQ+ people had the courage to stand up for their rights, we now celebrate #PrideMonth," she wrote on Twitter. "Those pivotal events showed what we know to be true to this day: no one should be left to fight alone."
Follow NBC Out on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram

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Pride started with 'revolutionary riots': Advocates point to movement's radical roots

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LGBTQ advocacy groups Monday hastily reoriented planned Pride Month programming, already significantly altered by the coronavirus pandemic, to address the anti-racism protests that have erupted across the United States. In statements declaring support for #BlackLivesMatter protests against racism and police brutality, organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAAD pointed to the radical roots of the early gay rights movement.

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If the only queer activist you can think of when pride is mentioned center
Marsha P. Johnson and Stonewall, then you need to take a seat and take several queer history courses. Our road to pride goes far beyond just Stonewall. This article will take you through a few of the big names of pride in the US.

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It's LGBTQ Pride Month - a time to celebrate love, but also to champion equality and LGBTQ rights.

Throughout June, cities around the world have been hosting marches in honor of LGBTQ pride. In many countries today, people are free to join these marches, marry whomever they choose, and openly show their love. But that's still not the case for LGBTQ communities in every country, and even in countries where it is safe to march, there is still a long way to go before true equality is achieved.

Without these incredible activists, the LGBTQ rights movement would not be where it is today.

In honor of Pride Month, Global Citizen is celebrating the brave activists fighting for LGBTQ rights in places where it can be dangerous to do so, and the inspiring champions for change, without whom there might never have been a Pride Month.

While certainly not an exhaustive list by any means, these are 15 LGBTQ activists you should know.

1. Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson is sometimes referred to as the "Rosa Parks of the LGBT movement," but Johnson is a celebrated icon in her own right. Johnson was an activist, drag performer, sex worker, and model for Andy Warhol. She was black, queer, and trans - and fearlessly advocated for her rights and the rights of the LGBTQ community at a time when doing so put her safety in jeopardy.

"As long as gay people don't have their rights all across America, there's no reason for celebration," she once said.

Johnson was a key figure of the 1960s gay rights movement in the US and, as legend has it, threw the brick that ignited the infamous Stonewall riots, which were the catalyst for the movement and have inspired many Pride marches ever since.

In 1992, Johnson's body was found in the Hudson River. Her death was ruled a suicide, but those who knew her disagreed. A recent Netflix documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, celebrates Johnson's life and investigates the mysterious circumstances of her death.

2. Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera was a Latina trans activist, who, together with Marsha P. Johnson, co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization that provided housing and other services to homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City.

Born in New York City, Sylvia turned to sex work after her mother died by suicide when Rivera was just 10 years old. Rivera lived a turbulent life, struggling with drug addiction and homelessness, but Rivera was always a vocal and, at times, forceful advocate for change. She was once arrested for attempting to climb through a window (in a dress and heels) into a room where the New York City Council was debating a gay rights bill, NBC reported.

"Sylvia's role in gay history was that she was one of the first people to highlight that our movement needed to be more inclusive of people who did not fit in the mainstream," Carrie Davis, Chief Programs and Policy Officer at New York City's LGBT Community Center, told NBC News.

3. Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk, the subject of the Oscar-winning film Milk, was the first openly gay politician to be elected in California. Milk was assassinated in 1978, but during his short tenure in office he pushed legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

The bill passed with just one dissenting vote by Dan White, the city supervisor who would go on to shoot and kill Milk. In 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger designated May 22, Milk's birthday, as a day of recognition for the late politician and activist.

4. Edith Windsor

In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right - a landmark decision that would not have been possible without Edith Windsor.

After a 40-year engagement, Windsor married Thea Spyer in Canada in 2007. Spyer passed away just two years later, leaving everything to her wife. Because the US did not recognize their same-sex marriage, Windsor was asked to pay taxes on Spyer's estate far beyond what a heterosexual spouse would be required to pay on the estate of their deceased spouse.

Windsor took her case to court and in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. Two years later, the court expanded on that ruling in another case that led to federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

5. Alice Nkom

Alice Nkom is a human rights lawyer and LGBTQ activist from Cameroon, where homosexuality is still criminalized. In a country where police officer entrap members of the LGBTQ community through text messages and beat those they perceive to be gay, Nkom bravely fights for rights on behalf of the LGBTQ community.

Though Nkom identifies as heterosexual, she has dedicated her work to fighting for Cameroon's LGBTQ community and founded the Association for the Defence of Homosexuality in 2003. Though she and her colleagues are sometimes in danger because of the work they do, Nkom remains undeterred.

"These threats are in fact proof that our fight must continue," Nkom told Amnesty International.

6. Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox, best known for playing Sophia Burset on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black, is a black, trans woman, the first trans person to be nominated for an Emmy, and a proud advocate for LGBTQ rights. Cox has been outspoken about access to health care for LGBTQ communities and has particularly championed the rights of trans people and people of color.

"We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class," Cox wrote in a Tumblr post in 2015. "I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks."
Read more: 33 Quotes That Show Laverne Cox Just Gets It
7. Alexya Salvador

Alexya Salvador is a trailblazer. She is a trans woman in Brazil, where violence against LGBTQ people has reached an all-time high. More than 380 LGBTQ-identifying people were murdered in Brazil in 2017 and 58 died by suicide, the Guardian reported.

And she's a pastor. Salvador calls herself the " first transgender shepherd of Latin America," and, with other trans pastors from around the world, held a groundbreaking LGBTQ-friendly mass in Cuba last year.

Salvador is a mother of two, including a trans daughter, and is the first trans person to adopt a child in Brazil, according Al Día.

8. Lena Waithe

Actress, writer, and producer Lena Waithe made history in 2017 as the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing. But rather than reveling in her historic win, Waithe, who identifies as queer, used her acceptance speech to deliver an inspiring message to her "LGBTQIA family."
Read more: Lena Waithe Made a Bold Statement at the Met Gala and the Internet Is Here for It
"The things that make us different, those are our superpowers," she said. Waithe often uses her spotlight moments to advocate for the LGBTQ community. Earlier this year, she wore a rainbow cape to the Met Gala, a bold statement in the face of the event's religious theme.

9. Arsham Parsi

Arsham Parsi is a gay man who first began secretly working to support members of the LGBTQ community in his native Iran. But in 2005, the queer activist was forced to flee his country, where homosexual activity remains illegal.

Today, Parsi lives in exile in Canada, where he has founded the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, which supports and provides guidance to LGBTQ asylum seekers from the Middle East.

10. Michael Sam

Michael Sam became the first openly gay football player to be drafted by an NFL team in 2014. While his draft was a historic first, Sam's time in the NFL was discouraging. He was passed from team to team, and eventually found himself without a team. About a year after he was first drafted, Sam retired from the NFL citing mental health reasons.

His struggle highlighted the discrimination and homophobia still rampant in the sports world, but Sam has gone on to share his story and continues to champion change.

11-15. 'Queer Eye's' Fab Five

The all-star cast of Netflix's new Queer Eye series - a reboot of Bravo's early 2000s series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - may be all fun when it comes to makeovers, but they're serious about making a difference in the world.
People globally face many intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization every day, for many different reasons. Unjust social, political, and economic systems perpetuate this discrimination and keep people trapped in poverty. This June, take our Equity Month Hero Challenge to learn how we can all be champions for equity and justice every day, and earn your Equity Month Hero badge to wear proudly on your Global Citizen profile. Take the Challenge now.
The "Fab Five" - Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, and Antoni Porowski - speak openly on Queer Eye about their personal struggles and experiences with homophobia and discrimination. And the stars hope to use their newfound fame to empower LGBTQ communities.

"Just the idea that my being who I am [on Queer Eye] has made people, both younger than me and older than me, feel more comfortable about the space that they take up ... that is something I never saw coming," Van Ness told Refinery29 in an interview. "But also, when people are so effusive about how my role in Queer Eye makes them feel, it really opened my eyes to the amount of repression we still have."

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15 LGBTQ Activists of the Past and Present You Should Know

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15 brave activists inspiring champions for change and fighting for LGBTQ rights in places where it can be dangerous to do so.

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Once more, pride is often a place where many people see white cis queer folks as the face of the community. The stories we tell of pride and how we got here often times leave out the important history of sexuality before colonization and why we had to riot for our rights.

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Wanna really celebrate Pride month? We suggest acknowledging and healing from colonialism's oppressive and polarizing impact on gender and sexuality expressions.

Content creators Charlie Amáyá Scott (@dineaesthetics) and Sonalee Roshatwar (@thefatsextherapist) use their social media platforms to inform and navigate a colonized world. Their content uplifts audiences with affirmations while evoking celebration and laughter.
SEE ALSO: A very necessary look at LGBTQ+ history, and how intersectionality has impacted the movement
This Pride Month, Very Good Light spoke with Sonalee and Charlie Amáyá on what it means and looks like to decolonize sexuality, as well as how and why they unabashedly center their content around topics surrounded by social stigma - all while doing so digitally from the vast and wild internet.

Becoming Diné Aesthetic(s)

From inspiring joy and justice to "addressing historical and contemporary instances of violence, especially towards queer, trans, Black and/or Indigenous peoples," Charlie Amáyá is pushing the boundaries for what social media influencers can be. As an Indigenous non-binary trans-femme, content on decolonizing is needed for their life and survival. Despite any taboos that may stand in the way, they are inspired to create by and for the lives of generations before them and to come.

Charlie Amáyá utilizes their socials to be a catalyst for change and drive an end to harmful cycles. "There is already too much violence in this world, and I try my best to not recycle or replicate it."

Who is The Fat Sex Therapist?

Ever wondered what it would be like to introduce yourself as "The Fat Sex Therapist"? Radical sex therapist, clinical social worker, and community organizer Sonalee Roshatwar doesn't have to imagine.

Their work is also done out of survival as someone who self-identifies as "politically queer," which to them means they are marginalized and their whole self is not always welcome. It's also done as an act of love.

"My body of work is a love letter to my younger self," says Sonalee. "I want a world that is safer for her and for them. All of the versions of younger me who were policed and surveilled and controlled and threatened and diminished and unprotected. I really try to live my adult life in a way that would make her proud and would make her feel protected and safe."

Centering this work is surely no easy feat. What motivates them to keep going is reminding themself of the community, healing, and support they are fostering.

"It's not just about destructing or destroying systems, but it's also about creation, and what we are creating. And when we braid together all of our struggles, when we intertwine them and make ourselves and our struggles feel bound together. This also binds together our liberation."

Decolonizing sexuality and celebrating diversity

So, what does it mean to decolonize? Trust Charlie Amáyá to come through with receipts. " I often refer back to ," who argued that decolonization within the 'United States' requires the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. I also think about a quote from Tuck and Yang (2012), " Decolonization is Not a Metaphor ," la papers (2017), "A Third University is Possible who added that decolonization is the forwarding of Indigenous, Black, and queer futures."

"To decolonize something," Roshatwar says, "[is] t o consider the way colonization has affected it."

"So with decolonizing sexuality," Charlie Amáyá reasons, "i t is understanding the context and history of how we understand sexuality and challenging what has been normalized and/or marginalized historically. It is also celebrating the history of sexuality and the diversity of relationships to each other that existed before colonization and the expansion of Christianity. It is always being critical of romanticized narratives and selective narratives that reinforce and support systems of violence."

Sonalee understands the effects of colonization on the way sexuality is perceived and normalized from the axes of their own personal experiences and survival of brahmanism [casteism], right-wing Hindu supremacist spaces, and White supremacy. To them, the effects of colonization are seen in the normalization of a cisgendered gender experience, and fear-mongering away from pleasure-based sexuality and sex education.

"What we are taught is this form of rape culture, or purity culture, that gives away our body autonomy and our consent to our fathers and to husbands, instead of us getting to own it ourselves," they add, "[and] she would have agency over her orgasmic power."

"A decolonized sexuality would consider the ways that rape culture purity culture and diet culture, impact the way that we give away our autonomy as non-men, but really people of all genders," says Sonalee.

To summarize what it means to decolonize sexuality in short, we turn to Charlie Amáyá who is decolonizing for an optimistic future. " Decolonizing sexuality concerns itself with constantly being critical while imagining a future that celebrates us."

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Why decolonizing sexuality is important for the future of BIPOC LGBTQIA+ communities - Very Good Light

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Content creators Charlie Amáyá Scott (@dineaesthetics) and Sonalee Roshatwar (@thefatsextherapist) use their social media platforms to inform and navigate a colonized world. Their content uplifts audiences with affirmations while evoking celebration and laughter.

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Straight people co-opting a real movement in order to devalue and displace the purpose of pride

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Straight people co-opting a real movement in order to devalue and displace the purpose of pride

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Many times straight people often feel as though queerness and the celebration of such is somehow a threat to them and their existence. It is profoundly upsetting that us queer people need to continuously explain the history of pride to straight people in order to maintain a small level of respect and human decency. Queer history is American history, and the ignorance that American history books allow for continues to create a hostile and ignorant environment in which queer people have to continuously explain the systemic issues we have faced.

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My gaydar started to flash "warning!" when I first heard that a band of straight guys, known as Super Happy Fun America, are planning what they call a "straight pride" parade in Boston this summer. The group's slogan - "It's great to be straight" - is certainly catchy, in the same kind of way "Make America Great Again" is.

Indeed, it's great to be straight - some of my best friends, even my brother - are. And if LGBTQ people can celebrate June as Pride Month with a parade (and parties!) in their honor, why shouldn't straight people have pride, too?

Organizers are touting the new parade as a celebration of "the diverse history, culture, and contributions of the straight community." Amen, my brothers! You wrote the history books, the laws and the religious canons, and you are lionized month in and month out - that doesn't mean you don't deserve a parade as well.

Super, Happy Fun

Straight pride initially seemed like a bad idea going nowhere fast, but it is now on surer footing. Last month, Boston tentatively approved both a parade route and the permit, although the police department and city licensing board must still give their OK.

Despite promises to be "super happy fun,"I'm remembering the roots of straight pride, a movement launched about 30 years ago by conservative social groups to mock and ridicule gay pride - and people. Its goal has been laser-targeted: to denigrate the entire LGBTQ civil rights movement, which has always focused on equal rights and protections, like being able to keep your job, get married or be allowed into the hospital room when your beloved is dying. How fun is all that?

Even more "fun," in the weeks since straight pride was first announced, The Guardian has reported on the ties between its organizers and the far-right group Resist Marxism, leading to worries that straight pride might descend into violence. One of the organizers of straight pride, Mark Sahady, participated in an event last year in Portland, Oregon, that was declared a "riot" (and not in the funny, laugh-riot way) by city police. Sahady has also organized similar events for Resist Marxism in Boston. Suddenly, that super fun parade is starting to sound super dangerous, which is probably why Boston's mayor will wisely be a no show.

John Hugo, who is president of Super Happy Fun America and a Republican who lost a congressional race last year (not that this is a political event) has argued that straight people are an oppressed minority. Reasonable people might disagree on two counts - the oppressed part and the minority part - but that won't cut into Hugo's propaganda, oops, I mean fun, catchy slogans.

Comedian Eva Victor nailed all this on Twitter with a satirical video to her boyfriend that details why she's so excited to go to straight pride. "We have 364 days a year where we have unbelievable, unspoken privilege and then we have one day here - one day - where we get to celebrate having that privilege all year long," she quips. "What's not to understand?" she explains to the boyfriend, adding that they can wear swimsuits, ride atop a float and kiss in public. "Kiss me!" she demands, "that's what (straight pride) is all about."

Victor's message is scalpel-sharp to those of us who have lived with the fear of any public displays of affection, sometimesbeing arrested for holding hands or kissing in public,sometimes being assaulted or killed. Yes, kissing as a metaphor is central to LGBTQ pride, and when you see jubilant gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender kisses on a Pride float, know that those were hard-earned indeed.

Perhaps the most super happy part of the parade is its grand marshal, Milo Yiannopoulos. The disgraced right-wing pundit lost his job at Breitbart News in 2017 after making light of pedophilia, and was permanently banned from Twitter a year earlier after instigating racist abuse campaigns against an African-American comedian. In May, he was also barred from Facebook for "dangerous" speech. Sure, Yiannopoulos is on top of my invite list for a good time - and a grand marshal.

We're Here, Not Queer

"I've spent my entire career advocating for the rights of America's most brutally repressed identity - straight people," Yiannopoulos, who identifies as gay, said in a statement. The parade, he continued, will "celebrate the wonder and the majesty of God's own heterosexuality." Although it's not clear who the "we" are in his statement, he concluded that "it's great to be straight, and we're not apologizing for it anymore. We're Here, Not Queer."

A backlash movement that claims to promote or defend the rights of majorities when oppressed minorities rise up is nothing new. Take Black History Month, created to counter the systematic elimination of African Americans from American history. In recent years, efforts have been made to create a White History Month ( which a recent survey showed is supported by a small plurality of Trump partisans), ignoring the fact that American history pretty much is white history. History books are filled with tales of our (white) Founding Fathers, and 44 of 45 U.S. presidents have been white men. This does not look like persecution to me; rather it's animus cloaked in a false argument of equality.

None of this is to say that Super Fun Happy America should be denied its parade in the sun next month. Our dearest freedoms are of free speech and association, so we cannot tamp down expression we find egregious. At the same time, let's not get distracted by faux festivities that mask an agenda of exclusion, if not hate. I may have turned off my gaydar alarm for now, but I'm not going back to sleep. We all need to be wide awake for this.
Steven Petrow, a Washington Post columnist and a regular contributor to the The New York Times, is the host of "The Civilist," a new podcast produced by PRI and WUNC that discusses today's toughest political and social issues. Follow him on Twitter: @stevenpetrow

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It's great to be straight, so we don't need Straight Pride

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My gaydar started to flash "warning!" when I first heard that a band of straight guys, known as Super Happy Fun America, are planning what they call a "straight pride" parade in Boston this summer. The group's slogan - "It's great to be straight" - is certainly catchy, in the same kind of way "Make America Great Again" is.

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Often within the US we center ourselves in the narrative of pride, when in reality many countries before us had affluent queer communities. Though the history of pride differs from the vibrant (and violent) history of ours here in the US, many countries around the world also fought for their right to be out and proud. And many continue to fight till this very day.;

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In the United States, June is LGBT+ Pride Month. LGBT+ Pride Month's goal is to "recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally."

With that in mind - and along with Aperian Global's mission to promote diversity and inclusion and building business across boundaries - we'd like to share with you some things you should know about LGBT+ Pride Month in the United States and other commemorations around the world.

LGBT+ Pride Month Honors the Stonewall Riots of June 1969

The month honors the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969, one of the turning points for gay rights in the United States. The Stonewall riots came in the wake of a violent police raid on a Manhattan gay club called the Stonewall Inn; protesting and clashes lasted for several days after the raid.

A year later - on the anniversary of the Uprising - thousands marched for gay rights in the first New York City Pride March. Over the years, events and commemorations spread to cover the entire month of June, with President Clinton issuing the first " Gay and Lesbian Pride Month " proclamation in 1999.

LGBT+ Pride Month is Different Than LGBT+ History Month (in October)

LGBT+ History Month differs from LGBT+ Pride Month. Celebrated in October (along with National Coming Out Day on October 11th), " LGBT+ History Month provides role models, builds community and makes the civil rights statement about our extraordinary national and international contributions."

Pride Month Features Large Parades and Other Events

The month features a variety of events - everything from parties and concerts to workshops and learning opportunities. Large city parades, though, are generally the most visible elements of LGBT+ Pride Month.

With the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, most city events have gone virtual. Some of these events include:

To find a local event, explore this listing.

Other Countries Around the World Also Celebrate LGBT+ Pride Month

Gay Pride Month celebrations are not limited to the United States. Commemorations and celebrations also happen worldwide, though many countries might not "officially" designate June as Gay Pride Month.

Forbes provides a valuable resource for digital Gay Pride events around the globe here.

Explore the status of LGBT+ rights in the global workplace
Read Aperian Global's infographic here

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Celebrating LGBT+ Pride Around the World: Things to Know - GlobeSmart

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In the United States, June is LGBT+ Pride Month. LGBT+ Pride Month's goal is to "recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally."

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What's so bad about a rainbow burrito? If you've been following the rift in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement over the corporate embrace of Pride, the question may have crossed your mind. Last June, the West Village was a labyrinth of rainbows, with every bank branch and Shake Shack festooned with messaging for Pride Month. Chipotle sold limited-edition Pride merch, including tank tops with a rainbow burrito and the slogan "¿Homo Estas?" The hoopla-always big, but this time bigger-marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and culminated in the annual NYC Pride March, which drew some five million revellers and boasted sponsors including MasterCard, Macy's, Uber, and Diet Coke.

Amid the festivities, a group of activists staged an alternative: the inaugural Queer Liberation March-a smaller, rawer, more radical cousin to the established parade. In spirit it was closer to the roots of the Pride March, which was originally called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, and began, in 1970, to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The new march even re-created the original route, from Greenwich Village up to Central Park. There were no branded floats, no police contingent, no corporate funding. "One of our mottoes was 'We're here for queer liberation, not rainbow capitalism,' " one of the organizers, Natalie James, said recently. The group is now planning a second annual march, which will take place Sunday, while the main Pride March has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic -meaning that, by happenstance, the upstart march has usurped the Goliath in the space of a year, just in time to draw on a renewed spirit of spontaneous protest.

The critique that Pride marches have become corporatized and depoliticized has been building for years, part of a perennial tension in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement between assimilation and radicalism. "A lot of longtime activists had just stopped going to Pride," another organizer, Jay W. Walker, said. "They were kind of sickened by it." He brought up the concept of pinkwashing, in which "corporate bad actors" use a show of acceptance to buy good will while distracting from less savory practices. For instance, Walker mentioned Wells Fargo, which has had floats in Pride marches for years while maintaining ( until recently) financial ties with the National Rifle Association, which opposed gun-control measures after the Pulse night-club shooting, in 2016. "A big part of our issue with the corporations is they're not consistent in their support for us throughout the year," Francesca Barjon, the group's twenty-four-year-old social-media organizer, said. "It's about being able to profit off of us in June."

Cathy Renna, a NYC Pride spokesperson, countered, "We're so far past that with these corporations. They know they gotta do better than that. This is not about waving a rainbow flag in June in your window." The Chipotle merch, for example, benefitted the Trevor Project, which provides services to queer youth. "It's really easy for Pride to be a target, because Pride is something that everybody has some sense of ownership in," Renna said, adding, of the breakout march, "If we're going to continue to make the kind of progress that we want to make, I think it's important that we not-I'm trying to think of a way to say this that's family-friendly-crap on each other, because some people like to do things differently."

The Queer Liberation March had its roots in the 2017 Pride March, which featured the disruptive début of the Resistance Contingent, a consortium of activist groups that formed in response to the Trump Administration. It included groups such as Gays Against Guns, which staged a die-in, and Hoods4Justice, which formed a blockade to prevent the N.Y.P.D. marching band from joining the parade, with banners reading "There are no queer friendly cops" and "Decolonize pride." A dozen people were arrested. During the planning for the Pride March in 2018, Heritage of Pride, the organization that produces New York's Pride events, tried "dissolving" the Resistance Contingent, James said. It was eventually reinstated, but the activists were disillusioned with what the march had become. "We realized we all were very dissatisfied with the event itself, the degree of corporate floats, the corporatization, the bank sponsorship, as well as having a fully uniformed police contingent given a place of honor right at the front of the march," James said. The N.Y.P.D. presence struck the activists as particularly ironic, since the Stonewall riots had been provoked by a police raid. After delivering a set of demands to H.O.P., the mayor, and the police commissioner and getting brushed off, the group, calling itself the Reclaim Pride Coalition, took on the "colossal task" of organizing its own march.

James, who is an organizer for the queer caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America, helped arrange the first meetings at the caucus's space at the L.G.B.T. Center, in the West Village. One point of contention was whether to allow the Gay Officers Action League, or GOAL, to participate. "Eventually we came out on the side of the fact that the N.Y.P.D. as an institution, as a whole, is a racist one, and therefore having any representation of it wasn't proper," James said, though police officers were welcome to march as individuals, out of uniform. (Renna defended the presence of GOAL at the main march, saying, "It's a free-speech march. If you're going to let the Communists march, you're going to let the police who are queer.") "We wanted to get rid of the barricades, and we wanted certain police-free zones within the area," James said. A subgroup negotiated with the N.Y.P.D. "We didn't get a formal permit," she said. "But we did get an assurance that they would not interfere with our march."

The start time was set for 9:30 A.M. That morning, things did not start off promisingly. "We were there at the intersection, and there was just us," Jon Carter, one of the marshals, recalled. "We looked around and we could see empty streets, and there was a real question about what the day would look like." Then, after thirty-five minutes, there was an "If you build it, they will come" moment, as marchers materialized. (The group estimates that forty-five thousand people attended.) "We were very intentional about having trans people in the front," Barjon said. It ended with a rally on the Great Lawn, with speakers who included the ACT UP veteran Larry Kramer. Walker recalled, "Larry did his normal thing that he always does, which is to scream at queer people and go, 'You're not doing enough!' "

The group was busy planning a 2020 edition of the march when COVID-19 struck. After New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, temporarily banned large gatherings, the Pride March and its rambunctious challenger both cancelled. The Reclaim Pride Coalition decided to hold a virtual event, called Livestream for Queer Liberation. (The group also protested the controversial field hospital that was set up in Central Park by Franklin Graham's organization Samaritan's Purse, which asked volunteers to sign a statement opposing same-sex marriage.) But the calculation changed in early June, after the killings of George Floyd and other black Americans by the police sparked a wave of mass protests. "There was unanimity that we needed to have a march," Walker said. "And we needed to have it centered on the movement for black lives."

With only weeks to plan, the march's scrappy, D.I.Y. quality worked in its favor. "The simplicity of our approach to organizing marches and actions makes things very fluid and flexible, and we're able to pivot in a way that a more complex plan wouldn't allow us to," Carter said. The main Pride March, which Carter called a "polished spectacle," is still not happening this year. It's as if the COVID-19 meteor killed off a twelve-million-dollar dinosaur, and a smaller, more resourceful organism survived to fill the parade-size void. Nevertheless, the group has adapted to the new circumstances: it's gathering masks and hand sanitizer and will still put material online for people who can't take the health risk of attending in person. It isn't seeking any type of police blessing, advertising only the starting point (Foley Square). Also, James said, "We have voted on a start time, 1 P.M., so for the queers that utterly took umbrage at our 9:30 start time last year, I'm sure they'll be relieved."

The group's timing is apt. Outside Stonewall, there's now a sign reading " PRIDE IS A RIOT! "

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A Radical Challenger to New York City's Pride March

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What's so bad about a rainbow burrito? If you've been following the rift in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement over the corporate embrace of Pride, the question may have crossed your mind. Last June, the West Village was a labyrinth of rainbows, with every bank branch and Shake Shack festooned with messaging for Pride Month.

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Rainbows are around every corner; queer joy is in the air; Pride Month is here. Since it's easy to fall into the corporate rainbow trap of buying Pride-themed merch that doesn't actually support LGBT+ foundations, we've created a shopping guide to help you make savvier purchase decisions that wield a direct impact during the honorary June occasion: a comprehensive list of our favorite LGBT+-owned businesses.

Pride Month isn't just about dressing up in the full-color spectrum, it's about showing tangible support to the queer community; buying from LGBT+ owned businesses, spreading the queer-shopping word, and reminding your queer peers that their impact matters. Without further ado, click forth into 26 LGBT+ owned businesses worth supporting through Pride Month and beyond - you'll find everything from genderless skincare to art prints, queer fashion brands, and oh so much more.

At Refinery29, we're here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. All product details reflect the price and availability at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.

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25 LGBT-Owned Businesses To Support For Pride Month (& Beyond)

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Rainbows are around every corner; queer joy is in the air; Pride Month is here. Since it's easy to fall into the corporate rainbow trap of buying Pride-themed merch that doesn't actually support LGBT+ foundations, we've created a shopping guide to help you make savvier purchase decisions that wield a direct impact during the honorary June occasion: a comprehensive list of our favorite LGBT+-owned businesses.

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Short documentary on the History of Pride

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Short documentary on the History of Pride

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRv7dJTync

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Stonewall Forever - A Documentary about the Past, Present and Future of Pride

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What it means to be an ally to the queer community 

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What it means to be an ally to the queer community 

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In order to further the understanding of pride you must first look inward towards the biases (conscious or unconscious) that you may have. You will not truly be able to confront the history of pride and queer trauma without first being an open ally to the queer community.

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Here’s what a good LGBTQ ally looks like

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Unlike Taylor Swift, the best supporters rarely take the spotlight.

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Though I believe that allyship is important to our community being better understood within society, I feel as though there us a misconception that many straight people have about queer safe spaces. This can be seen by how many cishet men and women have taken over queer bars and safe spaces for themselves. We as a community understand how important it is to feel safe, however invading our safe spaces in order to have any semblance of your own is not the way to go about things. The amount of times I have been harassed at queer clubs, bars, safe spaces, and prides by straight "allies" who wish to show their support but turn violent at the even mention of my sexuality is insurmountable. I know that this is a difficult discussion to have, however we need to understand that within queer safe spaces, the safety of queer people comes first.

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"Is it appropriate for me to attend the Pride parade?" my mom asked me last June.

My mother isn't gay, transgender or bisexual, but she does have a queer son - one that she's incredibly proud of and unconditionally accepts. She wants to show her support for the LGBTQ community, but isn't sure if celebrating Pride is the best avenue to do so. And it's not just her - many well-intended allies are asking themselves similar questions, especially in 2018.

The past couple of years for the LGBTQ community hasn't been easy. The palpable optimism in the air during the summer of 2015 - which started with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage - quickly disappeared a year later, when news of the Pulse Nightclub shooting struck everyone across America. Six months later, Trump and Pence were voted into office. Quickly, the LGBTQ community's general tone shifted from optimism to protest.

The entire Pride movement, however, was borne from protest.

The first pride protest march c ommemorated the Stonewall Riots, which took place during the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969. The queer community of New York City was tired of the blatant harassment and discrimination perpetuated against them by NYC police officers, so during one summer's raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in in the heart of Greenwich Village, the community fought back. Transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were among two of the more prominent people to retaliate against the police forces. A year later the Pride march began, commemorating the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Pride's now evolved to mean a number of things to the LGBTQ community. It's a celebration of its diverse members. It's a time where we congregate to experience what it's like to be the majority in a large, public space. Seeing a bunch of fellow queers swarm the streets - kissing loved ones in public, proudly wearing fabulously flamboyant outfits - is not only empowering, but also a reminder that while we often feel alone, the LGBTQ community exists in great numbers. It's also a time, like it was nearly five decades ago, when we march not just for tolerance but for acceptance. We march to end workplace discrimination, to receive equal access to healthcare, and to serve openly in the military. We also march for the lives of transgender women of color, who are being murdered at an alarming rate.

In fact, what we are fighting for could actually be boiled down to one thing: we want everyone who's not a member of the LGBTQ community to become an ally. We want straight people to not only believe that LGBTQ people deserve the same treatment as cisgender, straight people, but to also fight for our rights as queer individuals.

Still, it makes sense why my mother and those like her would feel apprehensive about attending a Pride festival. On the surface level, pride is being overrun by straight people and large companies who attempt to capitalize on gay culture with limited-edition pride products - remember when Burger King unveiled the " Proud Whopper" in 2014? A combination of the influx of straightness at Pride, along with the major setbacks the LGBTQ community has experienced in the past two years, has encouraged LGBTQ people and activism groups, like the Reclaim Pride Coalition, to once again make Pride a form of protest, not simply a celebration.

Nevertheless, even though Pride isn't "for" my mother or any other straight person, that doesn't mean she can't show her support. Her support, unlike those of many companies, simply needs to be genuine.

The issue isn't then, "Is it appropriate for allies to attend Pride?" because the answer is unequivocally yes. If allies weren't allowed to partake in Pride, then straight women who date bisexual men wouldn't be able to attend. It would also prohibit a cisgender straight man from celebrating Pride with his transgender wife, or a mother from taking her recently out, 13-year-old gay son to the parade.

The issue becomes "What's the best way to show support while simultaneously realizing that as a straight and cisgender person, Pride isn't for you?"

Really, it's simple: be respectful and accepting - exactly what the queer community is fighting for during Pride.

If you are there to gawk at or judge the men wearing rainbow jockstraps littering the streets with glitter for their their overtly sexual "lifestyle," then you should stay home and twiddle your thumbs for the entirety of June. Similarly, if you think gay people deserve equal rights, but "don't really get what transgender is all about" then don't attend. Instead, take the time to learn what being transgender is about. A large part of being an ally is taking it upon yourself to educate you and the others around you about the plight of the marginalized community.

You also need to recognize that there are some spaces that aren't for you, like a leather bar, a bear party, or Dyke March after party. There are spaces that aren't for me, too - I know not to attend a space that's exclusively for butch queer woman. Butch queer women often feel marginalized in male-centric gay spaces, so it's necessary for them to have a space to call their own. I respect that. Just like I expect allies to respect my queer-only spaces.

Part of being an ally is giving up space. Privileged people take up more space, literally, as in there are more of you and you probably feel comfortable in a lot more places than LGBTQ people, but also figuratively, when you monopolize a conversation by trying to offer your experiences. Or worse, when you say something along the lines of "not all straight people are like that." Which is another way of saying, "I'm not like that!"

We are very well aware, thank you. But this conversation isn't about you. If that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, then good. That's kind of the point. So during Pride, make sure you're going out of your way to give up space for the queer community.

Actually, a good ally does this year-round - so perhaps you should ask yourself, "Am I an ally the other 11 months of the year?" I know my mom is, so I told her over the phone, "You can absolutely attend Pride. Just bring some extra sunscreen to offer the drunk, half-naked boys who are getting burnt. Feel free to hand out my number, too."

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Should Straight People Attend LGBTQ Pride?

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Is attending LGBT pride a show of allyship, or a sign you're coopting someone else's community?

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How the history of pride continues to grow, change, and become more inclusive

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How the history of pride continues to grow, change, and become more inclusive

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Often times in the queer community, the face of our movements are spearheaded and plastered with white cis queer people. However, as we know, white cis people are not the only type of queer folks. As time goes on, the history of pride has grown to be more inclusive and diverse, allowing for queer BIPOC/POC folks and trans folks to feel more welcome in a once harsh community (this is not to say that everything is perfect, however things are changing).

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It's been a tumultuous pride season, not least because of a global pandemic and over 500 cancelled pride events worldwide.

But there has been international focus on Black Lives Matters protests, vitriol in the UK press about trans lives- J.K. Rowling.

All sat alongside a debate in the U.K. about the rainbow, a universal symbol of hope being used for to show solidarity with NHS workers, while blurring with a universal symbol of LGBT people-the six stripe LGBT Pride flag.

For the last 42 years, in the particular form of a flag with six distinct colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, Gilbert Baker's six stripe flag has been the internationally recognised symbol of the LGBT community.

But this year, Prides, brands and activists around the world have simultaneously and without any co-ordination, been adopting 'The Progress Flag' as their symbol for the community instead.

Designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, it features black and brown stripes to represent people of colour, and baby blue, pink and white to include the trans flag in its design.

From the London Mayor's office, to Boston Pride and even cultural institutions like the U.K.'s Southbank Centre-the symbol being used represent LGBT people is changing.

And it's all part of a drive to be more inclusive of the expansive breath of identity within the community.

What has driven the change to include new stripes?

A number of factors have driven the community to arrive at a new flag, with little discussion or debate.

Ultimately the pandemic has been at the centre of them, which is inspiring a seismic change in the way we all think.

But so has Black Lives Matters, vitriol about trans people and the NHS rainbow debate.

"The NHS 'thank you' rainbow, which was not actually an NHS initiative but a way for people to show solidarity and gratitude for front line workers," TV personality Dr Ranj tells me.

"The intention was never to replace or erase what the Pride flag was and we need to remember that. But since it's high time we recognised the value of all parts of the community, perhaps this is a good reminder to move to the Progress flag from now on."

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan tells me he is proud to have flown a version of the progress flag from City Hall for the last two years:

"London is a place where diversity and difference are celebrated and embraced," he tells me. "The LGBTQ+ community make an enormous contribution to life in our city and it is so important for Pride celebrations to reflect the rich diversity of that community.

"This flag recognises intersections within the LGBTQ+ community honouring LGBTQ+ people of colour-whose activism inspired the very first Pride-as well as different gender identities."

Jason Jones, who successfully campaigned to overturn colonial anti-LGBT laws in Trinidad and Tobago-which could yet be returned again if the Government wins an ongoing appeal-thinks the pandemic has thrown us all into a new reality:

"Many other movements are benefiting from this, for example the Black Lives Matter movement, and so of course there has been cross pollination to the LGBTQ+ movement where finally queer trans people of colour (QTPOC) and our issues are being recognised.

"As a queer man of colour, I am very hopeful [about] the adoption of the Progress Pride Flag by the wider community, it is a huge step forward for us all."

'Stop polluting our flag'

For writer and creator Radam Ridwan, aversion to the progress flag from within the community, however, remains all too memorable.

"Trans activists, especially those of colour, have been using the progress flag since 2018. However, it has recently grown in prominence in the U.K.," they tell me.

But when it was first used, Ridwan remembers a lot of resistance from the gay community.

There were cries of "gender and race are different from sexuality!" and "you're polluting our rainbow!" from many on social media.

Most repulsively, one drag queen put a unicorn puking up the black and brown stripe on one poster for a popular Manchester gay bar's event.

The bar went on to apologise for the action, that was in response to Manchester Pride adding the black and brown stripes to their rainbow for the first time.

"I have noticed an increase in the flag's use by white cis male homosexuals as well as in spaces typically inhabited by this group of people such as London and Manchester's G-A-Y now," Ridwan adds.

"I'd like to think recent events the world has faced have allowed for a refocusing of our attention on the issues affecting those most vulnerable. So, the use of the progress flag, hopefully, means an increased awareness of intersecting forms of oppression, and therefore the need for intersectional inclusion.

"However, actions of solidarity must outmatch virtue signalling. As we see a rise in prominence of racist and transphobic rhetoric in the U.K., awareness must lead to positive change.

The meaning behind the progress flag, captures where the LGBT community is right now

When Quasar reimagined the Pride flag in 2018 he wanted wanted to see if there could be more emphasis on the black and trans representation in the design of the flag to elevate its meaning.

He shifted the trans flag stripes and marginalised community stripes to the hoist of the flag into a new arrow shape.

The arrow points to the right to show forward movement, while being along the left edge shows that progress still needs to be made.

"Refusing the change means the continued promotion of a small number of people within the community as worthy of pride-primarily cis white male homosexuals," says Ridwan.

The meaning behind the flag's design is a perfect encapsulation of where the LGBT community stands.

We are a community that has, and is, making great progress. And yet we have so much more to do.

Not only on trans and POC representation-but for bisexual, pansexual and asexual people. And there is still progress yet to happen for the incredible spread of gender identities, romantic and sexual orientations we don't talk about enough.

... Read More

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Why Many LGBT People Have Started Using A New Pride Flag

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A simultaneous un-coordinated shift in the symbol for the LGBT community is taking place due to an international focus on Black Lives Matters protests, vitriol in the UK press about trans lives, and the rainbow use for the NHS amid coronavirus.