The oldest still-existing LGBT

Fun Facts

In Celebration of Pride Month

1. The “Mother of Pride” was a bisexual woman. Brenda Howard, a bisexual woman and lifelong militant activist, was known as the “Mother of Pride” for her work in organizing the Christopher Street Liberation Day March. Howard was also credited with laying the foundation for the week-long cel- ebrations of Pride leading up the modern day Pride parades. She also co-founded the New York Bi- sexual Network in 1988.

2. Europe has a Pan-European International Pride Event, called, appropriately, Europride.

3. Amsterdam is the only city whose Pride celebration literally floats on a river. The parade in- volves 100 decorated boats that sail through the city on the Prin- sengracht River.

4. The oldest still-existing LGBT organisation in the world is Neth- erland’s Center for Culture and Leisure (COC). Founded in 1946, it adopted a vague name to mask its taboo purpose.

5. The longest pride celebration lasts three to four weeks in Sydney, Australia each February, ending with Mardi Gras.

6. For the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1994, Gilbert Baker was commissioned to make the world’s largest rainbow flag. The flag used the six-stripe design that’s popular today, and measured thirty feet wide. The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed it as the largest flag in the world, but it has since lost the title. Baker made another giant rainbow flag in 2003 that stretched a mile and a quarter across Key West, Florida.

7. Harvey Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. The crit- ically-acclaimed 2008 film Milk, starring Sean Penn, was based on his life.

8. Pride parades weren’t always called Pride parades. When ear- ly Pride events started, they were more militant, and were more often referred to as marches. “Gay Liber- ation” or “Gay Freedom” were more common names for those marches. As militancy slowly decreased in the 1980s and 1990s, events moved toward a parade-structure and the “Pride” language.

9. June was chosen to be the LGBT Pride Month to commem- orate the Stonewall riots, which took place in New York in June 1969, when gay bars were illegal. The brave activism displayed in the incident is considered the start of the gay liberation movement.

10. While the first U.S. Pride event can be traced back to 1970, the first Dyke March didn’t happen for 23 more years. Dyke Marches, which usually happen on the eve of Pride parades, were first organized by the radical activist group, The Lesbian Avengers.

11. The Pentagon has an LGBT Pride event. The Pentagon’s first Pride event was held in 2012. Gay members of the military talked about the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and the importance of being able to discuss their families and loved ones with fellow servicemen and women.

12. Records of same-sex relationships have been found in nearly every culture throughout history with varying degrees of acceptance.

13. The number of gays and lesbians in the U.S. is estimated to be approximately 8.8 million.

Answers to last issue’s puzzles