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LGBTQIA+ Pride Month is celebrated in June to honor the courage demonstrated by the predominantly BIPOC gay and trans activists who took a stand at the Stonewall Rebellion starting on June 28, 1969. Their refusal to acquiesce to the notorious “Vice Squad” of the New York Police Department (NYPD), accustomed to abusing their authority and raiding gay bars with impunity, also came to represent the start of one of the signal civil rights movements of the late 20th century.
While it was neither the first police raid nor the first time that gay people resisted, the event served as a significant turning point in the gay liberation movement. Following the lead of drag queens, queer sex workers, and other people marginalized on the basis of their nonconforming sexuality and gender identification, millions over time fought back against the stigma, bias, and abuse that had routinely been directed at them. Beginning in the early 1980s, the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS–which disproportionately affected those who were already socially and economically vulnerable–provided additional motivation for activists to secure expanded legal protections for LGBTQIA+ people and the partnerships and communities they sought to create.
Fifty years of LGBTQIA+ activism have indeed transformed U.S. society for the better in some important ways.
At the time of Stonewall and for a long time afterward, private, consensual sexual conduct between people of the same sex was illegal–thus giving the state the power to intervene in any area of every day life. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted such discriminatory laws to stand despite the challenge brought in Bowers v. Hardwick, a deeply disappointing ruling at the time. Protection from the arbitrary application of such unjust laws had to wait until 2003, when a significantly different SCOTUS finally ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment would apply for private, consensual sexual conduct.
Another decade would pass before the 2015 SCOTUS decision in Obergefell v. Hodges declared same-sex marriage to be legal at the federal level. This decision marked an important advance on Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 SCOTUS decision legitimizing interracial heterosexual marriage, in acknowledging the inherent right of adults to marry whomever they choose. With the Obergefell ruling, laws prohibiting second-parent adoption within same-sex couples were also deemed unconstitutional, since the case of DeBoer v. Snyder and several others related to marriage and family rights had been consolidated with Obergefell.
Consequently, certain aspects of life for LGBTQIA+ people—-aspects that many heterosexual, cisgender Americans could take for granted—-finally seemed to be easing in the wake of Obergefell, even if discrimination in housing and employment still remained widespread and difficult to challenge successfully. In the worst circumstances, unfortunately, gender nonconforming LGTBQIA+ people have remained vulnerable to gender- and sexuality-based violence, despite the status protections that Lawrence and Obergefell provide.
Progress does not succeed evenly, in other words, or without backlash. In the middle of 2023, with COVID-19 and its effects still harming people in marginalized communities, we also must confront, resist, and counter the growing frequency of attacks on people who identify as LGBTQIA+. For example, LGBTQIA+ parents are again facing discrimination in fosterage and adoption, a struggle that many had believed to be securely won in 2015.
The transgender community has continually borne a heavy burden of bias, codified into discriminatory policies and laws. These have included relentless, unjustifiable attacks on transgender athletes of many ages and skill levels, efforts to deny gender-affirming care to young people and adults, and harmful bias in health care settings, all intensified for people without potentially buffering financial, racial, able-bodied, or cultural privilege.
During Pride month, parades and festivals across the country give LGBTQIA+ people the chance to show off their best, most joyful selves to people who can appreciate just how much effort it can take to be fully loud and proud. They provide validation to folks who may not find such support in their everyday lives, as well as a moment to celebrate real, tangible gains.
But the same reactionary forces that would deny bodily autonomy to people with the potential to carry a pregnancy and give birth also have the hard-won rights of LGBTQIA+ people in their sights. Looking backward and forward, the challenges as well as the satisfactions remain just as compelling today as they were in 1969.
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