Opinion: What does Pride month mean to the LGBTQ+ community in 2025?
Opinion: What does Pride month mean to the LGBTQ+ community in 2025? | The Excerpt
On a special episode (first released on June 9, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: As Pride Month 2025 gets underway across the country (albeit with fewer corporate sponsors), we asked what pride means to you – not just the parades, protests and community, but also your feelings, fears and hopes – and whether it can continue to exist in its current form. Here's what you told us.
Forum is a series from USA TODAY's Opinion team that is dedicated to showcasing views from across the political spectrum on issues that Americans are starkly divided on. If you'd like to weigh in on a different topic, you can find more questions at usatoday.com/forum. And if your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Michael McCarter:
Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. LGBTQ+ rights are back in the spotlight as President Donald Trump issues executive orders banning transgender military service members and rescinding funding from educational institutions that allow trans athletes to compete in sports. So far, in 2025, more than 500 bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community have been introduced across America. As Pride Month 2025 gets underway across the country, we asked what Pride means to you, not just the parades, protests, and community, but also your feelings, fears, hopes, and whether it can continue to exist in its current form.
I'm Michael McCarter. I lead the opinion sections of Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY. This is a bonus episode of The Excerpt highlighting a series from USA TODAY's opinion team called Forum. Here's what readers told us.
Gillian Gurney is 26 and lives in New York. She shared that current events have made Pride more important and that Pride must be seen through the lens of revolution and protest.
Gillian Gurney:
Pride is beyond important though in the current climate we are seeing people try to consistently attack this month in a way that hasn't been seen in several decades. And to me, Pride means so much more than just the joy and courage that we exude as a community year round. But I think this time specifically is a time to acknowledge the revolution that it took to get us here. This is my second Pride being publicly out at age 26, and I think back to people like my grandfather, who is an out gay man, but wasn't able to actually be out until the 1980s when at the same time, the AIDS crisis was rampant throughout his community and he lost several friends to AIDS unknowing as to why, and was treated like a national pariah. So not only is Pride about joy, but Pride is also about honoring those who came before us to make things like this possible.
Trump has never been shy about his direct homophobia, transphobia, and attacks against the queer community amidst at least every other minority community in this country. His hateful rhetoric and quite frankly, unconstitutional directives that he's issued since his first day in office that are purporting baseless attacks on our community that doesn't affect him in any way are deeply concerning. So if corporations, organizations, communities, lawmakers and individuals at every single level of both government and public sector and private sector don't stand up and mobilize and advocate in ways that we need, we could see our country fall back into a time where being yourself could be punishable by law. And we're already starting to see that.
This highlights the responsibility that we have both as queer people and both as allies to stand up and not allow that to happen because the second that we curtail to being silenced, that's when the other side wins. The queer community is both a very diverse community in and of itself, and I think my question would be how can we unite together and not allow other communities to split us up into further factions and band together to make sure that we're able to help everyone?
Michael McCarter:
Sixty-four-year-old David Thibodeau lives in Washington D.C. He's concerned about the threat of violence at Pride events across the country.
David Thibodeau:
I mean, I've worked corporate for a long time and they were strong supporters of Pride and I hate to see corporations and their support for Pride, I hate to see that atrophy. I think it is important. I probably won't be going to Pride this year, even though [inaudible 00:03:55] is holding World Pride. Last year during Pride, there were a lot of warnings from the previous administration about credible terrorist threats to Prides across the country, and this year there have been none, and it gives me pause because I don't think those groups that were issuing the threats last year have stopped issuing threats. I think that this administration is not paying attention to those groups anymore, so it's a matter of safety.
I actually had invited family to come down because it was World Pride this year, and I've kind of uninvited them. I don't want them to be in the middle of anything that might be unsafe. Kind of goes back to when I was a lot younger. Maybe I feel like we've gone 30 years back in time, maybe 40 years. I don't know. I think that anti-LGBTQ voices, their groups are being given a voice and I'm not sure that they represent the greater sentiment of the population. I'm pretty sure that they don't. I think we need to recognize more the root of these events and where they come from and that they are form of protest. There should be more room for a somber recollection of why these events are important.
Michael McCarter:
Houston, Texas native Jazz Paz told us she sees Pride as one way to honor elders in the LGBTQ+ community. She's 73.
Jazz Paz:
I think Pride month is very important and to me it means the celebration of our survivorship. It means that we recognize and are grateful to our elders who made Pride happen. What I'm seeing, especially this year, is big corporations wanting to participate anonymously, which doesn't seem very Pride-ful to me. There are also, of course, the ones that only come out for the Pride events and we never hear or see from them again. That makes me kind of mad. Ones like Target that used to be supportive are now almost like against us, and I think it is a lot of the DEI pushback that we're seeing from this prevailing political environment. I suspect the federal government might continue to honor Pride Month with lip service, but I don't think they're proud of us and I don't think they like us, and I don't think they're going to be enthusiastically endorsing us for the next several years.
I'm a little bit sad that Pride Month has sort of devolved into just partying. There's no sense of, at least in Houston, there didn't seemed to be any recognition of what made all this necessary or possible. It was a political and very serious, it was joyful, but it was taken seriously. In the beginning, in Pride in Houston all the bars closed, all the stores closed. Everybody was in the street watching the parade. There was a band. There was very creative floats. But it was just for our community, nobody else even knew about it. And now there's people with babies in strollers and their grandparents are there, and it's a spectacle. It's no longer, in Houston at least to me, it's no longer an honoring holiday. I think too many of the elders that suffered and really, really worked hard to make this possible have passed on.
I think the more younger generations don't have any idea how hard it was just to survive as a gay person. It was against the law to be gay. It was against the law for women to wear front zipping pants in Houston years ago, maybe like 50 or 60 years ago. And all the people that went to jail and a lot of them committed suicide when they were going to be outed in the newspapers, I don't think young people realize any of that. I think there's a lot of difference between reading about it or hearing about it and knowing the people that separate these things and knowing them personally as your friend.
Michael McCarter:
KJ Novoa is 27 and he's from Douglas, Arizona. He shared that Pride can't be erased even if corporations and politics stand against it.
KJ Novoa:
I think Pride means a lot of things to me, but first and foremost, it means visibility. I think I associate Pride with being out not just in terms of social media or in the media sphere, but also just in the world, being authentic, being ourselves. It's a reminder that we're free to be ourselves in this day and age no matter where the political winds may swing. I do think corporations play some role in Pride, and I do think that could be a positive thing and also to our detriment. Corporations obviously provide a lot of visibility whether we like it or not, and they are sort of a gateway to exposure for whatever cause that we may want to put out there. I think that in the same way, corporations pulling out based on a political direction being inconvenient for them can also be to our detriment, because then that means less visibility for us.
We shouldn't have to depend on corporations or big companies for this type of exposure and visibility for any type of marginalized community, but unfortunately we do. I think within the LGBTQ community, we have to ask ourselves regarding Pride, are we going to hinge so much on corporate support? Are we going to hinge so much on whether a certain president supports us or not? Are we going to hinge so much on public opinion that we let that decide whether we want to be visible or not? Whether we want to be out and about free and showing who we are without embarrassment or without any type of reservation?
I feel like even though I'm only 27 years old, I have learned a lot about LGBTQ history, and I know there's been many cases throughout history where there was times where the politics at the time were even more hostile towards LGBTQ people, whether it was during the Reagan years and when the AIDS crisis started to emerge, or the Lavender Scare when people were afraid of being associated even with certain colors or walking or acting a certain way because they thought it would get them labeled as gay and thrown out of their jobs.
So I think we need to remember that above all, we're resilient, and regardless of whether political winds swing right or left, I think that at the end of the day, we have to remember we're not going to be erased.
Michael McCarter:
That's all we have for today's episode. This is a co-production with the Forum team at USA TODAY, where we invite our readers to weigh in writing on a national topic of interest. If your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. There's a link to Forum in the show description. Let us know what you think about this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Michael McCarter, vice president of the Gannett Opinion Group. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
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'We have always said that we're a very conservative state, but we haven't acted that way. The actual legislature or state government has been very purple influence from other states, and it hasn't reflected upon the conservative nature of the citizens of Wyoming.' From the vantage of the Freedom Caucus, who describe Democrats and Republicans alike as part of a 'uniparty' dedicated to big government and less concerned about individual liberty, Heiner's assessment may be true. But, when compared to the rest of the country, Wyoming's politics are still to the right of the Republican or traditional 'conservative' spectrum. Before Wyoming was admitted into the union, the territory was the first in the nation to grant women suffrage in 1869. When it became a state in 1890, it had the first constitution in the world enshrining a woman's right to vote. For context, this came only five years after the Rock Springs Massacre, where locals murdered at least 28 Chinese workers and burned down their settlement amid concerns they were taking their mining jobs. By 1924, the state elected Nellie Tayloe Ross as the country's first ever female governor. Before Gordon, five of the last 10 governors were Democrats; the second longest-serving U.S. senator in Wyoming history was a Democrat as well. And, as part of its libertarian streak, the state maintains a laissez-faire attitude toward personal choice with individual health care decisions enshrined in the Wyoming constitution. Despite a concerted yearslong effort to ban it, abortion remains legal. Prior to the 1970s, there was more of a balance between the two parties, according to Phil Roberts, a professor of Wyoming history at the University of Wyoming, that mostly fell between democrats in the mining dominant counties and and republicans in agricultural dominant ones. But that all shifted long ago. Republicans have held a House legislature majority since 1965 and the Senate since 1937. Its citizens have voted for Republican presidents since 1952 (with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in '64), with nearly 70% of voters choosing Trump last November. Going back three presidential election cycles, Wyoming voted for Trump by the largest margin of any state in the nation. It has one of the lowest tax burdens, too — in part because of a mineral fund that's financed by taxes on coal and oil extraction, the state's largest industry. Ninety percent of its current legislature is Republican, and the state's partisan index rating is the highest in the country, with Republicans enjoying a plus-25 differential. The voters, Gordon thinks, believe in a variation of government that stays out of their stuff, lets them do what they need to do and doesn't — so to speak — tread on them. And rather than any reliance on the federal government, the focus is on local communities, school boards, county commissions and fire departments, he said. As such, in a state where so much of any livelihood is connected to natural resources, government regulation is seen as a stranglehold. With more than 80% of the population identifying as white, too, there's a certain homogeneity to the way social issues are considered. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for example, wasn't recognized as a holiday in Wyoming until 1990, six years after the Reagan administration established it. Barron relayed some comments a former Democratic governor, Mike Sullivan, made about how the two parties had swapped places in the last 10 years. 'The Democrats were always regarded as the party of the working people,' she paraphrased Sullivan saying. 'Now that's the Republicans. And, of course, this caucus took over the whole Republican party.' After the first week of the legislative session, Rodriguez-Williams was excited by the progress her colleagues had made. They passed several of their bills onto the Senate and were hopeful to reach a goal of passing five bills in 10 days — a plan they called their 'Five and Dime' — which they did with relative ease. In that first week and after, there had been little discussion or debate over the bills introduced, and most moved to the Senate without amendment. The way Rodriguez-Williams understands compromise, she said, was that 'the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is always willing to work with moderates or the establishment and try to get them to come our way. … And so we're always willing to listen to them and hope that they do come our way, because our way is what the people want. We're interested in carrying out the mandate the people have asked us to do.' The mandate that Rodriguez-Williams referred to was a demonstrative win, but came following an election year with a low voter turnout — the lowest since the last time Trump was elected eight years ago. Due to the prevalence of the Republican Party in Wyoming, elections are often determined at the primaries. Last year, only 27% of eligible voters voted in the primary — a statistic that republicans like Gordon brought up, as did Democrat Rep. Karlee Provenza, who wrote an op-ed breaking them out. Based on Provenza's calculations from data provided by the state, of the 122,718 who voted in the primaries, only 42,943 cast ballots for Freedom Caucus candidates. That rising up of Wyomingites — or 'mandate' — comes from 9% of the state's total population, she wrote. The numbers doubled in the general election to 60% of the state's population casting ballots, but the stage was set before any of the caucus names appeared on that final ballot. It's hard to claim to be speaking for the people when more than 70% of voters didn't even weigh in. The Freedom Caucus is not a singular entity but a coalition of elected officials and lobbyists who are seeking a more conservative form of American government that's dedicated to a close reading of the Constitution and is inching closer to the smallest federal entity possible. There's no official roster published, and after vetting of a legislator's voting record, membership is by invitation only. The State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) was a natural next step for the House's Freedom Caucus as an expansion of its ideals into state government. Both are part of the same greater organization, focused on providing resources to help win electoral power at both the state and federal levels. As of this year, 13 different state houses have Freedom Caucuses, and the hope is to bring them to all 50. Andy Roth, the president of the State Freedom Caucus Networks, said Wyoming is a 'case study of how a Freedom Caucus can execute its mission perfectly.' Jessie Rubino started as the Wyoming state director for the SFCN in 2021 and, in the past four years, she's helped the caucus grow from six members to eight, then to 16, then 26, and now 36. She's a lifelong conservative, born and raised in Cheyenne, who taught high school in Casper before becoming a lawyer. As an undergraduate, she interned for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso in D.C. — the only three months in her life that she hasn't lived in Wyoming. 'Unlike other lobbyists, I read every single bill that's filed, and I provide a summary of what it does and then a recommendation from the State Freedom Caucus Network,' Rubino said. Most of her time is spent researching and drafting amendments to bills on the floor as needed. But, depending on the day, Rubino said she's also 'helping strategize, helping our members understand the bills. Our members, especially now with the majority, they're spread really thin … so it's valuable to be able to give them a quick hit summary on all the bills that come through.' Rubino sends these summaries and suggestions over a group text thread, which has come under intense scrutiny. Opponents suggest that the national umbrella organization is providing local lawmakers with not only talking points but explicit directives on how to vote. The representatives themselves, however, explain it in practical terms. When Heiner was a freshman legislator in 2021, the bills came fast and were complex. 'You'll be talking about noxious weeds, and you're supposed to be an expert and then you'll switch into banking and trust laws and you're supposed to be an expert on that,' he says. 'I couldn't keep up.' Later that same year, Heiner was invited along with several other representatives to visit D.C. and learn more about the network. He was dubious about getting caught up in national politics but found that he was ideologically aligned with their investors and was surprised that the network had already vetted him. The SFCN explained that they offer research and resources — the services Rubino described — that could help the legislators manage the information deluge. 'That appealed to me,' Heiner says. But 'the narrative that's out there is that they tell us how to vote. … Well, I'm an alpha male. I will never sell my vote.' There may not be an explicit demand attached to each text message or policy explanation, but summaries of the legislation are filtered through the Freedom Caucus director. It's practical — larger legislative bodies like Congress, as well as the DNC and RNC, have administrative staff who do similar research — but some lawmakers, like Mike Yin, a Democrat from Teton County, who saw his colleagues reading from their phones during committee meetings, says that it suggests that the caucus members don't know what they are talking about when they look to text messages for answers. After months of these criticisms, Rodriguez-Williams in May wrote an op-ed in WyoFile, a local newsroom that covers state politics, lambasting the suggestion these practices are in any way nefarious. 'Vote recommendations are everywhere in the Capitol,' she wrote. It's a fair defense, but it doesn't explain the difficulty members had explaining bills, like what Barron described. Sen. Eli Bebout laments that current legislators, by not working with others outside their ideological camp, are not building the lasting relationships possible in state governments. In his time, he's seen a lot of different Wyoming legislatures, too. Bebout served as a state representative from 1987 to 2000 and then as a state senator from 2007 to 2020. But he began his career as a Democrat and as he found the Republicans increasingly more aligned with his perspectives over time, he switched parties in 1994. Bebout remembers when the state was so broke, and legislators — on either side of the aisle — had to accept that they were not going to get everything they wanted. He says they did what they thought was right for Wyoming 'collectively,' even if they 'argued like the dickens' about it. 'Legislating, in my opinion, was the art of compromise,' he says. This was a perspective Bebout shared with a good friend, Al Simpson, the longtime U.S. senator from Wyoming who — in a sense of dramatic timing that can only be chalked up to serendipity — passed away one week after this legislative session ended. His legacy was a testimony to the enduring power of legislative compromise. His landmark achievement? The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that legalized undocumented immigrants. Famously not one to mince words, Simpson referred to the Freedom Caucus, according to one of his close friends, the journalist Barron, as a 'cult.' One of the things you have to decide as an elected official, Bebout says, is whether or not you believe that government has a place. In Wyoming, he said, it does. A legislator can't just 'go in there and slash and burn because you want to cut, cut, cut,' he says. 'No, you go in there and you analyze. You look at it, you think what's right and you try to do what's best for Wyoming. Sometimes being a conservative, you just don't say no to everything.' One of the most controversial bills this year was SF69, a tax reform bill that gave single family homes a 25% tax reduction on property worth up to $1 million. In Wyoming, property tax is tied to the current market value of a home, rather than the purchase price, and as home values have skyrocketed — going up more than 8% from 2023 to 2024 alone — so have owners' costs. At the 2024 legislative session, relief was offered in the form of refunds to reduce the tax burden families felt. This year's bill was a continuation of that effort. Haroldson says Wyoming's broader tax structure is 'beautifully' limited as it's tied to extractive industries and reduced after hard-fought battles but is incensed about property taxes. 'We're putting little old ladies on the street,' he says. 'They're losing lifetime homes, and that's unacceptable.' Despite this relief seeming straightforward enough, the bill was one of the few Freedom Caucus agenda items that navigated significant discussion and reform, with 35 different amendments coming from the House alone. It was initially proposed as a 50% reduction but was refigured after significant debate. The reason for so much concern is that the tax bill has no backfill, meaning that, instead of the larger state government, local municipalities reliant on those funds will be the ones taking the financial hit. With such a tax structure, this loss of income for the small towns of the state will be significant. Everything from mental health support programs, Meals on Wheels through education, firefighting and policing have the potential to be affected. Gordon sees this bill as the state government imposing itself on local governments, those even closer to those they govern. By signing this bill into law, he believes that the legislature is taking tools and votes out of the hands of both local governments and the state's citizens. He says it's an understandable temptation. Though it is lowering taxes, this big government making decisions for smaller governments does not strike him as a 'conservative' effort at all. The Freedom Caucus is advocating to make up the difference from the tax receipts received from oil, gas, coal and other minerals, too. 'To me, that's wealth substitution, and that's not conservative,' Gordon said. 'If you're going to get relief, you should give it to those people who pay the taxes.' Regardless, this is one of the laws that will likely do well with many constituents in Wyoming, who will appreciate a quarter of their tax bill getting trimmed off the top. But it still shows a fundamental difference in how the caucus understands conservatism. In remarks at the State of the State address in January, Gordon referenced the success of the Freedom Caucus and the attention it brought to the state. He reminded Wyoming's elected leaders of the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers designed to defend the branches of government against the temptation for one to usurp the other's power. 'We are heirs to their wisdom, and Wyoming expects us to work together.' Today, that wisdom seems less important than ensuring that your political interests are met — that the 'mandate' given by the voters is upheld, even if it means legislating without compromise, without leaning into the nuance of the issues your constituents face. If it comes down to it, too, there is a valuable lesson from the nation's history, both the Revolutionary and the Civil War, that is perpetually relevant. In times of division, it is OK to 'fight' to ensure your needs are met — be that with trade partners, those crossing the border illegally, or with your fellow legislators. 'The other states and the rest of the nation will watch because they saw what's happened with the Trump reelection. People don't want the direction we were headed. They want a change,' says Heimer. 'Wyoming can be the point of that spear. This is what can happen in your state if you also rise up and grab your muskets and go and defend your state and protect your flank. … And I hope it happens that way.' Gordon thinks this approach of the Freedom Caucus's steamrolls nuance and oversimplifies the very complicated matters that the state government is responsible to legislate. He suggested that once some of the newer legislators gain some more experience, they might see things differently. 'Really, there's a degree of gray in those policy distinctions that, in the fullness of time, they'll have to come to grips with,' Gordon said. Gordon's constitutional suggestions may not have stuck — the advice of elders rarely gets through before experience comes along and enforces it — but he was right about the attention paid to the legislature. With that attention, there's at least one very exciting result. It reminded the governor of a joke a former governor told him about elections: Why do more people buy elk licenses in Wyoming than vote? It's because they like what they get a whole lot more. There are a lot more people in Wyoming paying attention to state government now than years prior — who knows if they really like what they're getting. Maybe after this year and next, the number of voters who show up in the primaries might grow beyond the 27% who did in 2024. Whatever that means for who wins elections, Gordon said, 'will be interesting to see.' Either way, 'I have come to understand that we aren't living in the same Wyoming that I grew up in,' he said.
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Bicyclists upset at removal of Arizona Avenue protected bike lanes
WASHINGTON () — There's controversy in the District after the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) removed barriers from a bike lane in the Northwest neighborhood because it looked ugly. Bikers in the Palisades said it will make using Arizona Avenue more dangerous. DDOT said it's because neighbors don't like the way it looks, and it's not used much. Tariffs prompt uncertainty for many Vietnamese businesses owners in Northern Virginia The top half of Arizona Avenue was just repaved about two weeks ago, from Loughboro Road to Hawthorne Place. Orange cones now replace the bike lane's protected barriers. The bottom half to MacArthur Boulevard hasn't been repaved yet, so the protected bike lanes will remain until that construction starts. Protected bike lanes are a big reason Nathan Barbour ditched his car and bought a cargo bike. 'I was like, great. I take my son to school and back every day using the lane,' Barbour said. 'I do grocery shopping for our family of five up the lane every single — I'm on it daily.' But in testimony Tuesday, DDOT Director Sharon Kershbaum said the protected bike lanes on Arizona Avenue from Loughboro Road to MacArthur Boulevard are going away. 'Today, it has very little usage because it doesn't take you anywhere. It takes you to a trailhead that is not bike accessible,' Kershbaum said. Neighbors disagree with that assessment. 'I use this every day, for exercise and for commuting with these awesome scooters,' said Willie Maiden. Immigrants and allies unite in DC to protest ICE raids and violence As Arizona Avenue gets resurfaced, the barriers aren't going to be replaced. 'The concrete blocks and flex posts are–I think there's very few people that are a fan of how those look aesthetically,' Kershbaum said. DDOT plans on painting five-foot-wide standard bike lanes in both directions. One will be along the curb on the north side and one adjacent to parked cars on the south side. Barbour isn't happy about the decision. 'You think I'm going to have my son ride up this bike lane with just paint? Paint isn't infrastructure. It doesn't protect anyone,' Barbour said. 'Aesthetics. There's no other reason given because there's no other impact of the lanes.' Tenants say church took down Pride decorations at DC apartment building Kershbaum said once the Capital Crescent Trail is done, which is more than a year off, they can revisit protected lanes on Arizona Avenue. Public comment can be filed in writing or by email by July 25 with the District Department of Transportation, Capital Planning Division, 250 M Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003, or by email to Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
