PRIDE: What it IS, Why it IS

Two-thirds of the way through Pride Month, we are still and again light-years, it would seem, from living in Equality…of enjoying and being protected by the granting of Simple Human Rights. 

For thousands of years, LGBTQ+ people (or whichever label, if any at all, was appended to this genetically blessed segment of the Global Demographic) have been ignored, dismissed, accepted, embraced, revered, even exalted in certain cultures (see “two spirits” in Native American cultural history); they have been seen as a step along the way to manhood as well as imbued with special powers of foresight (and fashion) by some cultures. 

It is only in the past few hundred years that this segment of society has been so aggressively targeted, hunted down, excoriated and shunned. Finding ourselves being characterized as evil segments of society, prime for eradication and elimination, to be shamed and shunned as we are targeted by even the most hateful of individuals and institutions under an insidious evil that wears the cloth of sanctity … when, in practice, these are forces and people driven by a sanctimonious evil - wanting to eradicate a population that has absolutely no effect on the lives of anyone beyond ourselves.

Faces of PRIDE

See them. Learn Them. Know Them. Remember Them.

These are simply some of those who gave voice and face to this tribe woven throughout the populations of our planet; they gave resistance, they gave courage, they gave up careers, families, freedoms and thousands gave their lives before there could be Parades.

Never forget what it has taken to get this far...and how fragile are our freedoms...

Among the Images (if you don’t already know, google these people):

Plato

Socrates

Da Vinci

Michelangelo

Oscar Wilde

Alan Turing

McCarthy Hearings

Christine Jorgensen

Police Raids

Stonewall Riots

Drag Queens

Random Angry Protests

Marches

AIDS Memorial Quilt

Keith Haring

Millions of AIDS Deaths

Greg Louganis

Matthew Shepard

Laverne Cox

Indya Moore

David Kopay

Bob Gurr

Gay Olympics/Gay Games

Tom Waddell

Ashlyn Harris

Megan Rapinoe

Ali Krieger

Ray Douglas McDonald

Tony Kushner

The Boys in the Band stage/screen

Tom Daley

Jerry Smith

Carl Sam

Esera Tuaolo

Roy Simmons

Gus Kenworthy

Ru Paul

Elton John

Li’l Nas X

Johnny Weir

Adam Rippon

Billy Porter

Kate McKinnon

Hannah Gadsby

Wanda and Alex Sykes

Matt Bomer

Billie Jean King

Martina Navratilova

Billy Bean

Kate Clinton

Sir Ian McKellen

Elliott Page

Cast of “Pose”

Robin Roberts

Danell Leyva

Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor

Eddie Izzard

George Takei

“Queer Eye” Five 2020

“Queer Eye” Five 2018

Ellen DeGeneres

Pete and Chasten Buttigieg

Thank You!