Pride Month: Newsletter June 2019
It is June! Once again, we celebrate Pride Month to remember the events of June 1969, when the trailblazers of Stonewall Inn, NYC, rioted and turned their identities from shame to pride. In this month, LGBTQ+ folks around the globe come together to celebrate our community – our sacrifices, our differences and our diversity. This month’s newsletter explores some of our shared history and shines light on recent developments impacting us.
50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by the LGBTQ+ community against an oppressive police raid that took place on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, Greenwich village, NYC. This event heralded the gay liberation movement, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and gave us many leaders including Stormé DeLarverie, Marsha P. Johnson, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, etc. 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of this watershed moment. We have come a long way since, but the good fight is not over yet!
History of the Pride Flag
The original eight-color rainbow flag was created by San Francisco-based queer artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 at the request of legendary gay-rights leader Harvey Milk. Baker, who passed away in 2017, intentionally never copyrighted the flag because he wanted it to be owned by everyone. The flag has undergone many changes over the years.
The Original Flag: The original eight colors meant thus – pink (sex), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), turquoise (magic), indigo (harmony) and violet (spirit). (Source: The Gilbert Baker estate)
The Popular Version: Pink, turquoise and indigo were non-standard colors in flag production and too expensive to produce. They were dropped and royal blue was added. After Milk’s assassination in 1978, the gay community wanted to make the flag more “street-ready” and wanted to divide the flag evenly- three colors on either side of the street- as they walked the parade route in 1979. This led to the popular six-stripe version.
The Inclusive Version: In 2017, Philadelphia unveiled a new flag with black and brown stripes, to represent people of color who previously felt marginalized, ignored and even intentionally excluded from Pride celebrations. This new flag is becoming increasingly popular globally.
LGBTQIA+ Rights Around the World
Source of data: ILGA (https://ilga.org/), datasets updated for May 2019
Contemporary Global Activists for LGBTQ+ Rights
Ellen DeGeneres Multi-award-winning actor, writer and standup comedian, Ellen came out in 1997 and repositioned herself as the host of one of America’s most successful chat shows, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. DeGeneres has previously hosted the Emmy Awards, the Academy Awards and American Idol. She regularly uses her show to speak about LGBTQ+ rights.
Lord Waheed Alli Media entrepreneur, businessman and the youngest and first openly gay peer in the British House of Lords, Waheed Alli works for gay rights at the highest levels. In the UK, he was instrumental in getting the age of consent for gay sex lowered from 18 to 16, and in the repeal of Section 28, which forbade the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities.
Alexya Salvador She is a trans activist in Brazil, where violence against LGBTQ people has reached an all-time high. As a gay-rights activist and a pastor, Salvador calls herself the “first transgender shepherd of Latin America,” and, with other trans pastors from around the world, held a groundbreaking LGBTQ-friendly mass in Cuba in 2017. She is the first trans person to adopt a child in Brazil.
Alice Nkom is a human rights lawyer and LGBTQ activist from Cameroon, where homosexuality is still criminalized.Though Nkom identifies as heterosexual, she has dedicated her work to fighting for Cameroon’s LGBTQ community and founded the Association for the Defence of Homosexuality in 2003.
Rainbow View: A monthly feature to shine light on the rainbow spectrum
Focus in June: “Aromanticism”
Aromanticism is a broad spectrum, but it means people who do not, or rarely, experience romantic attraction. Romantic attraction is a specific form of attraction and does not always align with sexual attraction (or other forms of attraction such as aesthetic, sensual or platonic). Aromantic does not necessarily mean that the person experiences romantic repulsion. Some aromantics might be romance repulsed (i.e. extremely uncomfortable with romance in any way), but it’s actually separate to the experience of attraction. Some aromantics absolutely love romance – such as romcoms, going on dates, etc – but not actually experience romantic attraction for themselves, for instance. Aromantics can love, find partners and have children. The image here on the right side is that of the Aromantic Pride flag.