Pride Month

Tuesday, June 7th, 2022 The significance of Pride month

Bella Fratkin

Business Manager

In June of 1970, one year after the Stonewall uprising, the first Pride Month was celebrated.

Pride Month is a time of celebration for the LGBTQ+ community to pay tribute to how far the movement has come and recognize the struggles they face today.

Sophomore Vito DeMarino, former leader of the Sexuality and Gender Awareness club (SAGA), shared why they think Pride Month is so important. “It’s a remembrance of the people we lost and the people who went [through] their lives living a lie,” they said.

The Stonewall uprising is typically described as the tipping point for the gay liberation movement in the U.S. It consisted of a series of riots between the police and protesters, spanning the course of six days starting on June 28, 1969.

It began when law enforcement raided one of the most popular gay bars which was one of the only safe spaces for queer people to gather. This bar was in the Stonewall Inn located in the Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan.

Because homosexuality was a crime until 1966, a gay person couldn’t be served alcohol. This meant many queer establishments served alcohol without a license. This led to a lot of police raids. These raids would often turn into riots due to police violence.

Transgender protesters, and particularly trans people of color, were the biggest targets of violence from the police and felt the greatest weight of discrimination.

Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson. Johnson is thought to be one of the first rioters at Stonewall and played a major role in the movement for change.

She was one of the founding members of the gay liberation front and was seen as an icon after the Stonewall riots.

Julie Angles, the SAGA advisor, spoke to the importance of education as a means to combat hate.

“It’s all about love for goodness sake!,” she remarked.

Sophomore Trinity Arnold talked about the isolation that queer people sometimes face in our society and how times like Pride Month are great opportunities for LGBTQ+ people to find community.

Homosexuality was decriminalized by the Supreme Court in June of 2003, only 19 years ago.

We’ve come a long way as a country with the legalization of gay marriage and more widespread acceptance for the LQBTQ+ community, but the fight for equality is far from over.

Pride Month is a time to celebrate the sacrifices that activists made for queer people to have the rights we see today.

For DeMarino, Pride Month is “...a celebration of a culture that has been repressed by our society. It’s a celebration of what didn’t die under oppression.”

Bella Fratkin/PEPPERBOX These AHS students prepare to celebrate Pride Month on the senior lawn with homemade signs celebrating love of all kinds