In the early morning of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village became one of those hallowed grounds in the history of popular struggle. It’s where New York’s queer community finally had enough and fought back. Decades of harassment, abuse, assault, and arrest by the NYPD laid the kindling, and that night at Stonewall struck the match that became the Pride movement. That night was not the first response to State-sanctioned persecution of the LGBTQ communities, but it was the one that turned the tide and ushered in a new beginning for the gay rights movement.
Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the FBI and several police departments kept lists of known homosexuals and their friends, and even places they frequented, and the U.S. Post Office kept a list of addresses of people who received mail of a suspected homosexual nature. In some cities, merely existing in public while dressing or acting in a way that conflicted with your gender assigned at birth was enough to get you arrested.
Some people never learned how to deal with being uncomfortable, and because of this, they do everything they can to remove whatever makes them uncomfortable—even if that discomfort comes from another person just trying to live their life. Pride is for the LGBTQ community, for celebrating living their truth and being authentic in a hostile world. If that makes you uncomfortable, that’s a you problem, and you should deal with it on your own time. Or, you can show up at Pride events with your Bible quotes—as some inevitably do every year—and let everyone know that you hate joy.
As sure as the melodious sounds of the robin usher in the spring, the sounds of the homophobe usher in the summer. Every June, without fail, they emerge from their dank lairs, full of smugness and righteous indignation, often with a holy book clutched in their hand, screaming, “Where’s straight pride month?!” and “Why do they get a whole month while the military only gets one day?!” It is as predictable as it is sad.
The homophobes and transphobes are wrong, of course, because they see equality as a threat to their very existence. Using math that only they can understand, they equate more rights for queer people as fewer rights for themselves. Far-right Christian Nationalists are experts at cherry-picking the Bible to suit their needs, and certain parts of the Old Testament are particular favorites of theirs.
We can explain to them that there is no straight pride month because straight people are not discriminated against, harassed, assaulted, or killed because they are straight. We can also explain that there is indeed a National Military Appreciation Month in May. None of this matters to them, for they don’t want to be corrected or educated; they just want to be mad, because they think Jesus told them to. (And because right-wing politicians definitely did tell them to.)
There is a certain brand of pseudo-patriotic Christianity that forces the homophobes to loudly proclaim that they unequivocally support the troops. And yet, when Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to prohibit transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals from serving in the military, they cheered. “Support the straight gender-conforming troops” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, I guess.
For quite some time there was, and continues to be, a certain sect of bigoted people who equated the queer community with child predators. Book readings at libraries by drag queens were frowned upon, and transgender people using the bathroom of their choice prompted legislation. This sect intimated that people could pretend to be transgender and assault children in restrooms, as if this was a new phenomenon unheard of until now. This sect of people is outraged at the idea of child predators, as we all should be, but there is no reason to incriminate the queer community, especially while the Catholic Church still exists.
There is a notion among some right-wing Christians that homosexuality is what destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the Book of Ezekiel tells us that the sins of Sodom were more aligned with current conservative policies. “This was the sin of Sodom: arrogance, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” Every time the Republican Party pushes its supposedly pro-Christian agenda, we are reminded that Jesus was a communist.
June is for Pride (and for corporations to pretend to support the LGBTQ community, at least until July). Rainbow capitalism is a big money maker, but Pride itself doesn’t have corporate sponsors. The parades and festivals sometimes sport corporate logos, of course, but even that is vanishing as big business increasingly stands lockstep with the administration’s “anti-DEI” edicts.
The real Pride is drag queens and trans women beating up cops who try to arrest them for existing. Pride is lesbians taking care of gay men dying of AIDS in the face of intentional government neglect.
For much of the history of oppressed people in this country, progress was not made by asking politely, but by taking to the streets and demanding equal rights and justice. This is true for the LGBTQ community, as well. Arundhati Roy summed it like this: “Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”
The first Pride was a riot against the police in Greenwich Village, with bricks and fists thrown by people like Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, by Stormé DeLarverie, a Black butch lesbian, and by Sylvia Rivera, a trans woman of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent.
These three gained notoriety for their work in the gay liberation movement and risked their lives to fight for the rights of the LGBTQ community. It is our responsibility to continue that fight, for without them, and thousands of others like them, there would be no Pride.
The Pride flag has many colors to symbolize the large community it represents. If you are not a member of the LGBTQ community and not represented by the Pride flag, then be the straight pole and support the flag. Be an ally, for there is still much work to do.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed here are those of the author.
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