Celebrating the Present, Future and Past
By Frank T., June 12, 2019
June has finally come around and for most students this means summer time, but other students are celebrating for a different reason. June is Pride month for the LGBT+ community. Whether you are part of the community or an ally, it’s important to remember what is being celebrating this month. “Isn’t it just celebrating being gay or trans?” In a way that is part of what is being celebrated, but that’s not actually why.
Most people have heard of Stonewall. If you don’t know Stonewall Inn was a gay bar in New York that was raided by police on June 28, 1969. When the police raided Stonewall without people knowing in advanced, things got messy quickly. Due to the lack of cooperation police decided to take everyone back to the precinct. Because they had to wait for transport wagons to come pick people up, a crowd began to form around them outside. With a much larger crowd of rowdy people, both sides started to become much more hostile to one another. People had finally decided to stand up against the law for their freedoms. First police tried pushing the crowd back to clear the street and when that didn’t work the officers started beating people with nightsticks. This only escalated the violence from the mob, which started chasing the police. Eventually the mob was able to get the police to retreat and the streets cleared up by 4:00 AM.
Before Stonewall, the Mattachine Society held an annual peaceful picket in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, called The Annual Reminder. When the picket happened on July 4, 1969 it didn’t stay controlled. One of the organizers, Frank Kameny, was very strict about the rules they put in place to keep things calm, but another organizer, Craig Rowdell was encouraging couples to break those restrictions and hold hands. Coincidentally, that protest got more news coverage than the ones before. This got Rodwell thinking about changing their quiet ways of marching in order to get more attention to their cause.
On November 2, 1969 Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed a Pride March for New York City. They wanted to move it to the last Saturday in June in New York City to bring more attention to the protest and rename it “Christopher Street Liberation Day” in honor of the Stonewall riots. They also wanted to get rid of the dress and age regulations for the protest and contact other like organizations across the nation to suggest they hold the same type of protest on the same day.
These protests have held out to today, but turned into parades celebrating all the liberations the LBGT+ community has gained over the years. One day of pride has turned into a week of celebrating which has turned into celebrating during the entire month. Brenda Howard had a lot to do with that.
Though the word celebration is used instead of protest, there is still more freedom to fight for in the LGBT+ community. 34 states in the US still allow conversion therapy. Gay people are three times more likely to attempt suicide, and 41% of Trans adults admitted to attempting suicide. LGBT+ members of color experience much more backlash from their culture and are more likely to experience some form of assault than white LGBT+ members.
As we celebrate this month, we must remember the history behind the celebration and not forget the future the LGBT+ community is still fighting for. In the meantime, we celebrate the progress that has been made.
Sources: socialistalternative.org, save.org, wikipedia.org