What is Pride Month? An Explainer
June is Pride Month. But what is it, and why is it celebrated? You’ve got questions, and Parents Magazine has answers. They’ve created an explainer to share the origins and purpose of this annual celebration.
What is Pride Month?
Pride Month is a time to affirm members of LGBTQ+ community and remember that LGBTQ+ people deserve the same rights as everyone else, the article notes.
“Pride represents an opportunity for families to gather and show support for our loved ones,” explains Liz DeJesus, regional director council chair for PFLAG National, who is also the mother of a gay son. “We know that by supporting them it helps individuals feel authorized and affirmed,” she added.
How did it come about?
The Stonewall Riots of 1969 are widely viewed as the birth of the gay rights movement. On the night June 28, New York city police raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village. At that time, harassment and raids like this were common, as LGBTQ people were not allowed to gather, to dress as they pleased, to get married, or enjoy many of the basic rights of others in society.
It was the community’s reaction to the raid – fighting back when the police became violent – that was a turning point in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. One year later, the first Pride march occurred to commemorate the riots, protest inequality, and advocate for change – and it has continued each June for over 50 years.
Why do we call it “Pride?”
Pride has a double meaning. Originally an acronym for Personal Rights in Defense and Education, the name of an influential organization started in 1966 to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people in California, the term also means “consciousness of one’s own dignity.”
Why is Pride so important?
“Pride creates a safe space for individuals, especially those who don’t feel safe,” explained DeJesus. She recounted the time she was manning a PFLAG booth where she put up a sign that read, “Get a hug from a PFLAG parent.” She had to hold back tears when a young person approached her, asking, “You mean, you will really hug me? My own parents won’t.”
The article explains that Pride Month creates a place where LGBTQ+ people can feel “safe, welcomed, affirmed, and celebrated,” where “they can feel connected and feel a sense of community and not feel alone.” In addition, it “creates visibility to the rest of the world about the size and power and beauty of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Read the full article here.
Hope, Allison. “How to Explain Pride Month to Your Child.” Parents Magazine, 26 May 2022, https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/how-to-explain-pride-month-to-a-child/.
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