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Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Who founded Pride Month and when did the first celebration take place
While former U.S. President Bill Clinton was the first to declare a Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in June 1999, the history of Pride dates back decades earlier to the Stonewall riots. Sunday, June 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month in the UK, with marches and events occurring throughout the country all month long. Pride Month is a time to both commemorate the history of the Stonewall riots as well as to celebrate the activism and contributions of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community. To better understand the significance of the month, here is a brief breakdown of the history of Pride Month, including its notable patrons and dates. Who started Pride Month? New Yorker Brenda Howard is considered the 'Mother of Pride' for coordinating a rally followed by the Christopher Street Liberation Day March to mark the first anniversary of Stonewall Riot. She came up with the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day which eventually grew into the large-scale annual Pride celebrations held globally today. Who is Brenda Howard? Brenda Howard was a long-time champion of bi-inclusion and was a fixture in New York City's LGBTQ+ community. Howard was also active in the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which supported New York City's LGBT rights law in 1986. In 1987, she helped found the New York Area Bisexual Network to coordinate services to the bisexual community. She was also an active member of the early bisexual political activist group BiPAC, a Regional Organizer for BiNet USA, a co-facilitator of the Bisexual S/M Discussion Group, and a founder of the nation's first Alcoholics Anonymous chapter for Bisexuals. Who is Marsha P. Johnson? Gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson is an icon of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) who is often cited as the architect of the Stonewall riots. Johnson is also known as the "Saint of Christopher Street" - the street where Stonewall Inn was based - for her devotion to the LGBTQ+ youth. From the foundations of the GLF, Marsha joined friend and fellow activist Sylvia Rivera in founding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which offered shelter and care for young transgender people. Throughout the 1970s and prior to her tragic death, Johnson became more widely known for advocating for the liberation of gay people from prisons and equal rights in the United States. When was the first Pride Month in the UK? The UK's first Pride march was held in London on July 1, 1972. This date was specifically chosen as it was the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in the U.S. which saw LGBT+ patrons targeted by the New York Police Department. After the first Pride march in London, marches were held across the UK - though not consistently - during the 1970s and 1980s. For years, London hosted the UK's main Pride event, with people travelling from around the UK to attend. Today, regional celebrations and marches occur across the country every June. Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you! When is Pride Month? Pride Month in the United Kingdom runs throughout the month of June each year. This year it will run from Sunday, June 1 to Monday, June 30.
USA Today
14-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Do you celebrate pride? Are you worried about Trump's impacts on it? Tell us.
Do you celebrate pride? Are you worried about Trump's impacts on it? Tell us. | Opinion What does pride mean to you? Can it continue to exist under Trump? Share your opinion below. Show Caption Hide Caption San Francisco Pride faces shortfall as corporate sponsors pull out Several major companies have opted out of donating to San Francisco Pride this year, such as Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, Nissan, and Comcast. Do you ever stop to think how much wisdom and guidance is lost when a generation dies? A project in college opened a mental window into the vibrant tapestry of LGBTQ+ history. It helped me contextualize, for the first time, what pride was. During the Stonewall riots, under the advocacy of icons like Marsha P. Johnson – a trans woman forced into survival sex by society's rejection of people like her – our predecessors demanded a better tomorrow for the LGBTQ+ people who would come next. In those steamy, riotous June days of the late 1960s, LGBTQ+ history took a turn against the constant police raids of gay bars and spaces and stepped into the sunlight – where we belonged. Of course, the idea of gay pride and freedom didn't start there. But it didn't end there, either. The HIV/AIDS crisis, under President Ronald Reagan's apparent disinterest in addressing what was erroneously understood as a disease that only affects gay people, ravaged the LGBTQ+ community. Our queer elders died. There is a whole generation of LGBTQ+ people who are now mentoring the next generation of us without having mentors of their own. They had to slide into the empty bar stools vacated by their predecessors and decide what tomorrow looked like for the rest of us. Share your opinion: Do your kids know who Trump is? Do you talk about politics at home? Tell us. | Opinion Forum I'm proud of who I am – but I'm worried about pride The existential threats continue. President Donald Trump, during his second administration, issued an executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion funding. He issued another executive order banning transgender military members. He has made his intentions in attacking our community clear – and his anti-DEI policies already have corporate sponsors pulling out of major pride events from San Francisco to New York City. Can Pride Month continue to exist under Trump? Are you worried that he could end the federally recognized celebration altogether? (Take our poll here or scroll down to submit your responses.) To be represented, to be proud, is to say it to yourself over and over again. It is to say it louder than the people who don't think you deserve to be who you truly are. It is to say it when you're happy, when you're scared. It is to say it loud enough for somebody in the next room to hear and maybe feel themselves represented for the first time. It is to be unflinching and unafraid of who you are – and who you deserve to be. That's pride to me. What does pride mean to you? But it's your turn now. With this latest USA TODAY Forum installment, we want to know: What does pride mean to you? What are your hopes, your fears, your wishes, your moments of joy that make the month what it is? If you're a queer elder, what do you want to say to the younger generation? If you're Gen Z, what questions do you have for the older generation? Here's some more questions to help you get started. Do you think it's important to have a Pride Month? Do you agree with pride in its current form or think it should change? Do you think corporations, business and government should have a role in pride? Are you worried about how the Trump administration could affect pride? Are you concerned that the federal government may try to further infringe upon the rights of LGBTQ+ people? Fill out the form below or email us at forum@ with the subject line "Forum Pride Month." We'll use some of your responses as part of our upcoming Forum roundup. Drew Atkins is a digital producer for USA TODAY and USA TODAY Network Opinion.
Vox
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Vox
How Trump is rewriting American history
The National Park Service eliminated references to transgender people from its Stonewall National Monument website and now only refers to those who are lesbian, gay and has been disappearing from government websites. First, it was Stonewall. The word 'transgender' was removed from the National Park Service page commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, at which trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera played a central role. The acronym LGBTQ was also changed to just 'LGB.' Then, Harriet Tubman was erased from a page about the Underground Railroad, and the language changed to highlight 'Black/white cooperation.' A page about Jackie Robinson's Army service was taken down from the Pentagon's website. (Both pages were later restored after public criticism.) A Washington Post investigation also found that at least half a dozen pages referencing the Little Rock Nine, the Black students who integrated an Arkansas high school in the 1950s, previously said the students had 'opened doors' for those seeking 'equality and education.' Now, the pages say the students were just seeking 'education.' The edits come amid the Trump administration's push to end DEI and 'restore truth and sanity' to American history, an effort causing alarm among historians like Yale professor David W. Blight. In an interview with Noel King on Today, Explained, Blight says the changes amount to a brazen attempt to rewrite our past — but that America is no stranger to revisionist history. The country has rewritten and re-saved and re-pushed its narrative of events so many times that it might as well look like the filename of a high schooler's final project. Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There's much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Reporters will often say, 'Donald Trump is unprecedented. The things that he does are unprecedented.' But I imagine you would tell me that the United States has tried to rewrite its own history, at certain points. Many times, yes. Give me some examples of the times we've tried to do this. During World War II, the United States created a massive propaganda machine called the Office of War Information. That's what governments do during wartime. That organization did indeed engage in a lot of propaganda, selling stories to keep Americans patriotic. Moving ahead from that to McCarthyism: Anti-communism was a very deep phenomenon in America — and not without some reason in the '30s and '40s. But McCarthyism caused a wave of attempts of trying to control what writers wrote, what historians could teach, who could teach anything. Let's take the Civil War. In 1865 to 1870, there was an organization in the South called the Southern Historical Society. That was originally made up mostly of former Confederate officers who were determined to try to control the story of what the war had been about, what they had actually fought for, what their crusade meant, what the Confederacy actually was. On the Right The ideas and trends driving the conservative movement, from senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. What was the story they were trying to sell? They told a story that we've come to know as the 'Confederate Lost Cause.' Namely, they were arguing early on that they did not really lose the war on the battlefield, they only lost to superior numbers and resources. They said they lost only to 'the leviathan of northern industrialization.' There's some truth in that, but that's not the full explanation. They also argued that the war was not really about slavery. It was really about state sovereignty and states' rights. It was really about resisting the federal interference with their lives and their civilization and their morays and folkways… Can I jump in and tell you something? Sure. I'm from central New York. I went to public school. That was what I learned. Wow. Why did I learn something that wasn't true in public school? Because over time, in culture, schooling, politics, and rituals from the 1870s and '80s well on into the 20th century — and still surviving in a textbook you were learning from in the 1990s, I am sorry to hear — was this idea that the United States divided had this all-out horrific war. But it had to put itself back together again. How do you put back together something so horrifically divided? You're going to have to find mutuality. You're going to have to find some kind of unified narrative. Well, one of the unified narratives they did develop in the 19th century — and there's reality to this — is that you unify around the valor of soldiers. But if we admire valor without ever looking at the cause for which they fought, it's of course limited. 'Our greatness is in the amazing strivings and triumphs of all kinds of people in the past who challenged power.' Now, the typical and powerful belief was that everybody in that war fought for the cause they believed in. And if you fought for the cause you believed in with great valor, you fought for the right [reasons]. Everybody was equal in valor. The causes had to be muted, put aside. Well, you know, that's a part of human relations as well: How do you keep a family together? Well, there's some things you don't talk about. But for nations and whole peoples and cultures, the danger in this is that the stories you take on, the stories that you develop that define the identity of your nation — the identity of your past and now your future — is going to leave somebody out. In fact, it may end up allowing you to reconcile on the backs of those who most suffered from the conflict you are trying to reconcile. Obviously, in America, that meant Black Americans. It meant their civil and political rights, which were created and then slowly but surely abandoned and then crushed in the Jim Crow system of the South. Now, the point of all of this is that the Confederate Lost Cause, which said the South fought for noble ends, they fought for their homes, they fought for their sovereignty, they fought for their integrity. … It eventually becomes, though, not a story of loss at all. It becomes, by the 1890s and into the 20th century, a victory narrative. This was an age of a lot of sentimental literature. Americans came to love stories of the Old South. Of course, it's there in Gone With the Wind, still, maybe the most famous movie ever made. So the Lost Cause was both a political movement and it was a literary movement. But it was at its core a racial ideology, and it lasted a very long time. Let's compare to what we're seeing today. What you're talking about with these popular books and Gone With the Wind, that seems to me more subtle than the president saying, 'You delete that information about Jackie Robinson's military service from the website.' Will what Trump is doing succeed because it is so unsubtle? That's a very good question and my instinctive answer — and it's partly my wishful answer — is that no he won't. It is not subtle, you're right: They're wiping out websites. They are explicitly saying, 'Professional history, whether it's in our greatest museums or our greatest university, has been teaching us all the wrong ways. They've been dividing us.' This is the word they love to use: The history we write has been divisive, divisive, divisive. Well, no, it's not. It's simply informative. Sometimes it gets people riled up and sometimes it gets them arguing and sometimes fighting. But what the Trumpists are doing is telling us that they know better — policy people at the Heritage Foundation or pseudo-historians who think that studying all this stuff about race, gender, all the ethnicities that make us up, all this pluralism, is just taking away from 'American greatness.' They use that term a lot: 'We're no longer teaching our youth about American greatness.' Yes we are! We're teaching our youth that our greatness is in the pluralism. Our greatness is in the amazing strivings and triumphs of all kinds of people in the past who challenged power. What will you know about World War I if you try to find nothing but greatness? What will you know about the history of imperialism and expansion if all you wanna know is about greatness? What will you actually know about Native American history if all you look for is greatness? It defies the intelligence of anyone with an education, and a whole lot of people who don't have a lot of formal education. I'm not very optimistic right now about what's going on, but I do have a certain faith that people just aren't going to buy this.
NBC News
31-03-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
New York landmarks to be lit pink, white and blue for Transgender Day of Visibility
New York state landmarks will be lit pink, white and blue — the colors of the transgender pride flag — Monday night in celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced. A proclamation signed by the governor declares the day is meant to 'reaffirm our commitment to support, affirm and celebrate New York's transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary' people. The 15 landmarks to be lit across the state include One World Trade Center in New York City; the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building in the capital city, Albany; Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in Tarrytown; and Niagara Falls. 'New York is proud to be the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, with trailblazers like Marsha P. Johnson, whose courage and leadership sparked the fight for equality,' Hochul said in a news release Monday. 'While the Trump administration is attacking the existence of trans people through harmful policies and rhetoric, New York remains a beacon of hope and acceptance. On Transgender Day of Visibility, we honor the strength and resilience of the transgender community.' Marsha P. Johnson was a longtime trans activist best known for her role in the 1969 Stonewall uprising and for her work supporting transgender women of color, particularly co-founding the trans advocacy group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. In February, references to transgender and queer people were removed from the Stonewall National Monument's webpage, and 'LGBTQ+' was shortened to 'LGB' on the National Park Service's website. The changes came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. government would only recognize two unchangeable sexes, male and female. 'As one of the only LBGTQ+ members of the State Senate, and the Senator representing the historic Stonewall Inn, I often think about how I would not be the person I am today if not for the courageous trans women who sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement right here in my district,' state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in the news release. 'The incessant attacks on the trans community by the federal government are deeply disturbing, but fortunately New York State has leaders who understand the importance of accepting people for who they are.' Hochul's proclamation also dubbed New York a 'safe haven' for all transgender people, with the governor noting that it was the first state in the U.S. to issue statewide regulations prohibiting harassment and discrimination based on gender identity.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
5 Black LGBTQ+ trailblazers who influenced history
Throughout history, there have been figures whose legacies have endured, continuing to shape movements and events. These individuals defied the odds and were pillars of resilience, expression, and authenticity. As we celebrate Black History Month, we spotlight some Black LGBTQ+ game changers who had a major impact on the community. Marsha P. Johnson Marsha P. Johnson's name is synonymous with revolution and advocacy, particularly for trans rights. A Black trans woman and one of the most iconic figures in the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation, Johnson co-founded the Gay Liberation Front and the Street Trans Action Revolutionaries (STAR). She was present at the Stonewall Riots of 1969, a defining moment for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Johnson's activism was marked by her compassion for marginalised communities, especially trans and homeless youth, offering them shelter and support. Her legacy continues to inspire as a symbol of courage and social justice. Marsha P. Johnson: Trans activist. She was a leader at the infamous Stonewall Riots & helped homeless LGBT+ youth. — 🌙𝑀𝒪𝑅𝑅𝐼𝒢𝒜𝒩 ✨ (@GayGothMermaid) February 16, 2016 Jackie McCarthy O'Brien Jackie McCarthy O'Brien made history as the first person of colour to play for the Republic of Ireland senior women's football team. She made her debut in 1983, going on to secure a total of 13 international caps. She also earned a place on the Irish women's rugby team, making a similar number of appearances and being their first mixed-race player. James Baldwin Writer and activist James Baldwin was one of the most profound voices of the 20th century, exploring race, identity, sexuality, and marginalisation. His works, including Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time, confronted the painful realities of racial and sexual identity in a divided America. Baldwin's eloquent exploration of race and queerness resonated widely, making him an intellectual and advocate for human rights. His courage to speak truth to power paved the way for generations of activists and thinkers and his words continue to inspire today. 'It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I'd been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the Earth as though I had a right to be here.' —James Baldwin — AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY (@AfricanArchives) January 11, 2025 Gladys Bentley Gladys Bentley was a revolutionary figure in early 20th-century Harlem, known for her powerful voice and unapologetic gender expression. As a queer Black woman during the Harlem Renaissance, Bentley defied norms both onstage and off, performing in speakeasies and nightclubs where she captivated audiences with her bold performances of jazz, blues, and gospel. She was known for dressing in men's clothing and challenging conventional ideas of femininity. gladys bentley was a lesbian gender-bending blues singer, pianist and entertainer during the harlem renaissance. according to the new york times she was harlem's most famous lesbian in the 30s. — ale ☆ (@romansnby) June 1, 2020 Willi Ninja Known as the 'Godfather of Voguing', Willi Ninja was a legendary figure in New York City's ballroom scene. Rising to fame in the 1980s, Ninja's innovative dance style—characterised by sharp, angular poses and fluid movements—was a defining element of voguing, a dance form rooted in Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities. As a leading figure in the ballroom scene, Ninja helped bring voguing into the mainstream. His contributions not only shaped the world of dance but also became a symbol of resilience for those marginalised in mainstream society. Ninja's legacy continues to thrive in LGBTQ+ culture and fashion, influencing contemporary artists and dancers worldwide. Willi Ninja voguing in the studio and at the 1998 House of Fields ball. In this clip, which is from the 1998 short documentary Voguing: The Message, he cites the people who taught him to vogue including Little Michael and Hector Valle Xtravaganza, founding father of the house. — come from behind (@GoAwfCis) January 3, 2025 These five Black LGBTQ+ individuals were not just trailblazers; they were visionaries who challenged societal norms and fought for the rights, visibility and inclusion of the most marginalised throughout history. As we continue to face new challenges and struggles, their legacies remind us of the power of standing unapologetically in one's truth and fighting for a more just world for all. The post 5 Black LGBTQ+ trailblazers who influenced history appeared first on GCN.
