Happy Pride Month 2026!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer/Questioning) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here (especially with the new administration of darkness attacking LGBTQ rights) and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces here in the United States. In fact, a recent report from the policy research Williams Institute at UCLA showed that LGBT+ people in the United States are NINE TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN NON-LGBT+ PEOPLE TO BE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT HATE CRIMES. Gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes, while political attacks against the LGBTQ community have increased with destructive, radical conservatives insisting that anyone who stands for LGBTQ rights is somehow "grooming children" for sexual exploitation. Yet that pales in comparison to some other unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins, governments who insist that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that such ideas are evil imports from the Western world (Ghana imposes actual JAIL SENTENCES for anyone just identifying as LGBTQ).

The LGBTQ Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, tortured, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

Happy Pride Month 2025!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer/Questioning) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here (especially with the new administration of darkness attacking LGBTQ rights) and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces here in the United States. In fact, a recent report from the policy research Williams Institute at UCLA showed that LGBT+ people in the United States are NINE TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN NON-LGBT+ PEOPLE TO BE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT HATE CRIMES. Gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes, while political attacks against the LGBTQ community have increased with destructive, radical conservatives insisting that anyone who stands for LGBTQ rights is somehow "grooming children" for sexual exploitation. In fact there were over 800 anti-LBGTQ bills introduced last year alone. Yet that pales in comparison to some other unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins, governments who insist that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that such ideas are evil imports from the Western world (Ghana imposes actual JAIL SENTENCES for anyone just identifying as LGBTQ).

The LGBTQ Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, tortured, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

Happy Pride Month 2024!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer/Questioning) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces here in the United States. In fact, a recent report from the policy research Williams Institute at UCLA showed that LGBT+ people in the United States are NINE TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN NON-LGBT+ PEOPLE TO BE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT HATE CRIMES. Gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes, while political attacks against the LGBTQ community have increased with destructive, radical conservatives insisting that anyone who stands for LGBTQ rights is somehow "grooming children" for sexual exploitation. In fact there were over 800 anti-LBGTQ bills introduced last year alone. Yet that pales in comparison to some other unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins, governments who insist that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that such ideas are evil imports from the Western world (Ghana's Parliament just passed an anti-LGBTQ law that imposes actual JAIL SENTENCES for anyone just identifying as LGBTQ).

The LGBTQ Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, tortured, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 2023!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer/Questioning) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces here in the United States. In fact, a recent report from the policy research Williams Institute at UCLA showed that LGBT+ people in the United States are NINE TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN NON-LGBT+ PEOPLE TO BE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT HATE CRIMES. Gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes, while political attacks against the LGBTQ community have increased with destructive, radical conservatives passing "Don't Say Gay" bills and insisting that anyone who stands for LGBTQ rights is somehow "grooming children" for sexual exploitation. In fact AS OF SPRING THIS YEAR, 2023, 417 ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS WERE FILED IN STATE LEGISLATURES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES SO FAR (think about that...FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN, MORE THAN ONE FOR EVERY DAY OF A FULL YEAR), MOST TARGETING TRANS INDIVIDUALS. Yet that pales in comparison to some other unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins, governments who insist that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that such ideas are evil imports from the Western world.

The LGBTQ Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, tortured, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

Happy Pride Month 2022!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer/Questioning) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces here in the United States. Gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes, while political attacks against the LGBTQ community have increased with destructive, radical conservatives passing "Don't Say Gay" bills and insisting that anyone who stands for LGBTQ rights is somehow "grooming children" for sexual exploitation. In fact NBC News calculates that of the nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in 2022 so far (think about that...TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY, almost more than one a day!), most target trans individuals. Yet that pales in comparison to some other unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins, governments who insist that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that such ideas are evil imports from the Western world.

The LGBTQ Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, tortured, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

Happy Pride Month 2020!

June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces not only here in the United States (gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes) but especially in unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins.

Because the LGBT Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003.
(Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."

https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

The Pride Shield by Fondation Émergence

For today's International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Fondation Émergence created The Pride Shield. Watch the video...

https://prideshield.com/

Defiant Tilda!

A photograph of Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton defending Russia's beleaguered lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community by holding a rainbow flag in front of Moscow's Kremlin is going viral in the blogosphere.

The star, who nabbed an Oscar for "Michael Clayton" in 2007, reportedly released the following statement on the photograph via her spokesperson: "In solidarity. From Russia with love."

Swinton's bold move comes at a particularly critical time for Russia's LGBT residents. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a so-called "gay propaganda" bill into law which imposes large fines on residents who "provide information" about the LGBT community to minors, according to The Guardian. Similar laws had already taken effect in St. Petersburg and other cities.

Meanwhile, Putin also signed a law banning same-sex couples in foreign countries from adopting Russian children on July 3.

(original article from HuffPo, here)

THANK YOU TILDA!