Pride Month marches on, despite frustration and worry from LGBTQ community over government actions

CNN

13 hours ago

Pride Month is designed to bring attention to the LGBTQ community in the United States, and this year's events included the same parades, music, laughter and rainbow-colored displays of every kind across the nation.
But Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling on gender-affirming care for transgender youth was the kind of attention many advocates didn't want and the capper to a month of discouragement.
'The decision itself does land like a punch in the gut during Pride Month, a time that's meant to celebrate liberation, joy and survival,' said Dallas Ducar, executive vice president of the Boston-based trans health provider Fenway Health. 'It showcases that while our resilience is not any weaker, the attacks are calculated.'
The high court decision upholding Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors may grease the wheels for court approval of similar laws already enacted in two dozen other states. And it comes with concern for a community used to a summer of celebration.
The annual event – marking the anniversary month of the Stonewall riots, which are considered the birth of the US gay rights movement – is now the backdrop for a wave of government actions and cultural backlash that has many LGBTQ advocates and the people affected concerned. From historic sites losing ties to LGBTQ roots and Pride performances being canceled at the Kennedy Center to adverse changes playing out in both courtrooms and social media accounts, many advocates say they're winded, but ready to continue the battle.
'Pride was made for moments like this,' said Ducar, referring to the Supreme Court decision on the Tennessee transgender care ban. 'Decisions like Skrmetti remind us of why we marched in the first place and why we still must.'
As Pride enters its home stretch, here are some of the government actions taken this month that LGBTQ advocates say have taken the country backward.
'I am deeply afraid for what this decision will unleash — politically and socially,' Samantha Williams, mother of a transgender student who was one of the plaintiffs in the Tennessee case, wrote in a New York Times op-ed. 'Now that the Supreme Court has denied the rights of young people like my daughter and families like ours, what's next?'
The actions affecting trans children this month go beyond the Supreme Court ruling, seeding worry for families and those in the community.
Continuing his battle to ban transgender women from competing in women's athletics, President Donald Trump put California directly in his sights after the success of a teenage transgender track and field athlete.
Trump said on social media 'large scale fines will be imposed' as a result, after previously threatening to withhold federal funding from the state.
The ability to compete in athletics in accordance with their gender identity is protected under a state law that was passed more than a decade ago. Although Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has expressed his own misgivings about transgender athletes, there is no sign California officials intend to change it.
US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called the law unconstitutional, adding, 'you have an obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause,' she wrote in a June 2 letter to more than 1,600 California public schools. So far, the federal government has not taken the threatened action, and most California schools are on summer break.
The Department of Health and Human Services is dropping the specialized support for LGBTQ youth on the government-funded 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline next month.
'Anyone who calls the Lifeline will continue to receive compassion and help,' the government said in a statement, but a program to connect LGBTQ callers with specially trained counselors is being dropped despite getting more than a million calls since it started in July 2022.
A 2024 study associated with The Trevor Project – a crisis intervention organization focused on LGBTQ young people – found suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary teenagers increased in the wake of restrictive laws passed by states. The group also said nearly 40% of LGBTQ youth surveyed in 2023 seriously considered suicide in the past year.
Pride – an unapologetically boisterous event – has been met by virtual silence from the White House.
'There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,' said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on June 3.
But the Department of Education announced its own plan to recognize June as 'Title IX Month,' referencing the law that protects women and girls against discrimination in education. The Trump administration has cited that law as justification for its efforts to keep transgender women from participating in women's sports.
It's not a dramatic course change for Trump, who never issued an official proclamation acknowledging Pride during his first term, though he did mention it in a 2019 tweet. Since then, the administration has shortened the abbreviation to 'LGB' or 'LGB+' in government documents and websites, including for the Stonewall National Monument in New York, removing the signifier for transgender people, an affront to now-legendary transgender activists who rioted there.
While conservative gay advocates like the Log Cabin Republicans – the largest GOP group 'dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies' – have argued the nose-thumbing at Pride is really a swipe at progressive politics, it has been accompanied by a large change in GOP opinion on gay rights. The percentage of Republicans who say gay and lesbian relationships are 'morally acceptable' has plummeted in the past three years, now down to 38%, according to Gallup polls.
Since taking over leadership of the Kennedy Center – the preeminent public performance venue in the nation's capital – President Trump has remolded its leadership, leading to event cancellations.
'NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA,' the president wrote on social media.
The Center canceled a Pride performance involving the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC. Soon after, a week of events at the Kennedy Center tied to the World Pride festival were canceled or moved to other venues, the Associated Press reported.
'We are finding another path to the celebration … but the fact that we have to maneuver in this way is disappointing,' June Crenshaw, deputy director of the Capital Pride Alliance, told the AP.
Trump appointed Richard Grenell, who serves in multiple administration positions, as interim director of the Kennedy Center. Grenell, who is gay, in an interview with Politico last week expressed embarrassment with many Pride activities.
'You go to a Pride parade and it's embarrassing! It's real fringe and it's too sexual. And I think that we have to start critiquing ourselves,' he said. 'By the way, this (opinion) is extremely popular with normal gays.'
Trump allies also point out he nominated the highest-ranking gay public official in the country's history, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. But that unfailing support is not representative of the community, as a CNN exit poll found more than four in five LGBTQ voters cast ballots for Kamala Harris in last year's presidential election.
As he has every year in June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – a former GOP presidential candidate – ordered flags at half-staff this month to remember the victims of the shooting at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub, a gay club where 49 people were killed in 2016.
The cut-and-paste proclamation was virtually identical to past statements, but with one major exception: it cut a section noting 'the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities' had been targeted.
A similar omission was made by DeSantis' office in 2019. At the time, the governor said the slight was unintentional and amended it on social media. This year when the absence was noted, no change was made, and no explanation was given. The governor's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment on the change.
The Log Cabin Republicans made no comment about the absence of LGBTQ acknowledgement in the former Republican presidential candidate's statement. Instead, the group published an op-ed from senior adviser Dylan Schwartz focusing on left-wing support for Palestinian causes.
In fact, there is little sign of organized backlash against the administration among gay members of the MAGA movement. The Log Cabin Republicans went from refusing to endorse Trump in the 2016 general election to now fervently backing his policies and praising what they call 'normal gays.'
'Trump is not 'targeting' our community,' Log Cabin interim executive director Ed Williams wrote in March. 'He's leading a massive course correction to reverse the radical and insane excesses that extremist, gender-obsessed elements of the Left have quietly and quickly imposed upon our government and our country, yielding no results while fostering more division.'
At the beginning of Pride Month, the Trump administration took a step that surprised many in the LGBTQ community – it ordered the Navy to rename a fuel supply ship named for gay rights advocate Harvey Milk, a defense official told CNN.
Milk, a member of the San Francisco city governing board who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country, was also a Navy veteran who was forced to resign because of questions about his sexual orientation.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi – who represents the district where Milk lived – called the decision a 'spiteful move.'
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said plans were being discussed to change the names of all John Lewis-class ships, which are named after civil rights icons, and not the USNS Harvey Milk alone.
'We're not interested in naming ships after activists,' Hegseth said at a June 11 congressional hearing.
'It's just so petty and mean-spirited,' Kevin Jennings, CEO of LGBTQ legal advocacy organization Lambda Legal, said of the ship renaming news. 'Our community – both individually and collectively – a lot of us have had to deal with bullies our whole life.'
If insulting Pride was intended to discourage progressive groups focused on gay rights, there are signs it may have done the opposite.
Lamba Legal – the group that organized the legal case against the Tennessee law and dozens of others – started a drive to raise $180 million. So far, it has surpassed its goal by more than $100 million.
'Think people realize that our last line of defense is the courts,' Jennings told CNN. 'I think there are clearly judges who are ideologues, but I think most judges actually respect and value the rule of law.'
While more than 30 years have passed between the Stonewall riots and the Supreme Court ruling that struck down state laws criminalizing same-sex relations, Jennings said the spirit of the Pride movement to patiently and persistently fight is not going away.
'We are going to persist until we prevail. If it takes 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, we are not going to quit,' he said.