We Need Pride to be Political
Photo by Sophie Popplewell on Unsplash
By Alice McCabe, Clinical Intern
Every year, millions of people in the United States celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride. June has been dubbed Pride Month, in honor of the LGBTQ+ history made this time of year, starting with the Stonewall Riots in 1969. Despite Pride Month itself being relatively new in the grand scheme of things, LGBTQ+ people have always existed, even if not in the specific names we denote to members of the community today.
More and more people are identifying themselves within the LGBTQ+ community due to an increasing visibility, and the pushback from mainstream media and politics has, unfortunately, risen to meet us with hatred and the dissemination of harmful, false information about our community. Our simple existence in a politicized world means that we are a political group of people, but it is the specific experience of the queer community, and our extensive political history, that begs us to see the month of Pride as a political call to action.
A short history of LGBTQ+ oppression in America
LGBTQ+ identities were considered completely in the norm for much of history in many, many cultures. Throughout colonization of the Americas, European standards of white, hegemonic masculinity were imposed on enslaved Africans, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and any inhabitants of colonized lands. “Homosexuality” became the broad term for anyone who did not fit within the margins of cisgender heterosexuality, and was deeply criminalized in the United States for much of its history, especially through anti-sodomy laws; these ideas of non-normative identities being punishable or wrong were spread across the world through the imposition of Western ideals globally.
In 1620, a pamphlet entitled “Puritan Norms” was published in the United States, declaring heterosexuality and the nuclear family as the only right way to exist under colonized Christian rule. Many queer relationships throughout the next 350 years would be punishable by law, many ending in the death of the “offenders.” Indigenous peoples and enslaved peoples brought to the U.S. from Africa came from cultures that often didn’t have a name for queer relationships, as they were considered normative (and so were non-monogamous relationships, too!). Many of these cultures had different conceptions of what being a man or woman meant, and even had more than two genders as the cultural norm; none of the above (in many, but not all) were in any way “unequal” to their differently-gendered community members. Part of the enforcement of colonizer rule was to enforce different practices of sexuality and gender as deeply shameful and wrong, and colonizers justified violence through the laws they created around making diverse expressions of gender and sexuality illegal.
The early to mid-20th century saw retaliation against LGBTQ+ individuals fighting to be visible and accepted. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research in Germany, with a pioneering library of queer scientific research, was one of the first institutions to be targeted by the Nazi party and its infamous book burnings. Gay individuals under Nazi rule were some of the first to be targeted and sent to concentration camps – and were the last to be released.
Despite the efforts of the gay and lesbian Americans in supporting the Allied forces in World War II – whether fighting overseas or taking positions at home – post-war America, during the Red Scare, the community became targeted as potential communists and were not to be trusted. LGBTQ+ people were deemed threats to national security. This time period, in which queer Americans were being removed from governmental positions or jailed for their sexual orientation, was dubbed the Lavender Scare. Classification of homosexuality as a mental illness was the main reason for this, written about in a governmental report entitled “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government.” Homosexuality and non-normative gender and sexualities would continue to be pathologized and targeted for the next thirty-plus years, though non-cis/heterosexual identities are still considered taboo to many communities across the U.S. (and transgender identities are still debated, unfortunately, as being a mental illness to this day by many people).
How did Pride as we know it begin?
Many people already know the story of the Stonewall Riots of June, 1969, an event considered the start of the tradition of Pride month. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village of New York City, a neighborhood known historically for its alternative, artistic population; much of the population identified within the queer community, and the Village became a hotspot for queer culture. The New York Police Department was known to raid bars and clubs where LGBTQ+ people were known to gather, arresting 13 people and sending hundreds of fed-up queer locals to the street in opposition to the cops. The fight against police brutality lasted for the better part of a week and was the force that created various LGBTQ+ organizations and lit a fiery torch for the LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Movement. One year after the start of the riots, on June 28th, 1970, activists marched in commemoration of the events of the prior year. Since the 70s, Pride has been celebrated every year for the full month of June.
But aren’t things different now?
Pride is political because queer people didn’t receive many, if any, legitimate rights in the U.S. till the 1960s and 70s, and we still do not have full and equal rights to our cisgender, heterosexual counterparts in the current day. Queer people have higher rates of poverty and worse mental and physical health outcomes; we are more likely to face violence both interpersonally and systemically. There have been relentless attacks on the community in the past decade with the increasing visibility of queer folk, especially transgender and gender non-conforming people.
Transgender people, and the queer community at large, inherently challenge the norm, as does anyone who doesn’t perfectly fit into the expectations placed upon us. It is no coincidence that LGBTQ+ books are being removed from schools, queer people are being deemed dangerous by rmainstream politicians, and queer and trans individuals are being posited as “dangerous,” “perverted,” and “mentally ill.” It is no coincidence that, as inequality in all aspects of life is on a very steep rise, transgender people are being scapegoated as the problem. And, it is also no coincidence that we are seeing a repetition of history in the disappearance of important research on our community from government websites, that we are seeing an increase in state violence against our community, and we are losing access to mental and physical health care that affirms our identities and allows us to be well.
What it really means to celebrate Pride
In the past decade or so, it’s been common for corporations like Target to push pride flag collections while rolling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and putting billions of dollars into the campaigns of politicians backing anti-LGBTQ+ policies. We see the removal of protections for queer folks, people of color, women, disabled people, and other groups that face systemic oppression. In the current political landscape, it’s important to remember to celebrate what Pride really is – a pushback against the oppression and violence our community has faced, and continues to face.
In celebrating Pride, we have to ask ourselves: What does history tell us? How did Pride come about? How do we find joy in our community and celebrate our resilience and identities while also making steps towards true equity for all?
We find progress through celebrating our community and understanding that we cannot go back. We find it through fighting oppression in political processes but also outside of it through organizing, mutual aid, and supporting our community (talk to people! Get connected and involved!). While our community shouldn’t have to fight to be heard, seen, and respected, and while this fight has been intergenerational and exhausting, we have so much to fight for. And the community will have your back.
At the end of the day, Pride should also be a celebration of our identities and all of the progress made by heroes like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two transgender sex workers of color who began the fight at Stonewall Inn almost 50 years ago, stepping up. Queer liberation is a 365-days-a-year fight and Pride is a great time to get involved – but remember to celebrate who you are, too!