LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity.[1][2] The movement has three main premises: that people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, that diversity is a gift, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent and cannot be intentionally altered.[3] The use of the abbreviated gay pride and pride have since become mainstream and shorthand expressions inclusive of all individuals in various LGBT communities.
The word pride is used in this case as an antonym for shame, which has been used to control and oppress LGBT persons throughout history. Pride in this sense is an affirmation of one's self and the community as a whole. The modern "pride" movement began after the Stonewall riots in 1969. Instead of backing down to unconstitutional raids by New York City Police Department, gay people in local bars fought back. While it was a violent situation it also gave the underground community the first sense of communal pride in a very well publicized incident. From the annual parade that commemorated the anniversary of the Stonewall riots began a national grassroots movement. Today many countries around the world celebrate LGBT pride. The pride movement has furthered the cause of gay rights by lobbying politicians, registering voters, and increasing visibility to educate on issues important to LGBT communities. LGBT pride advocates work for equal "rights and benefits" for LGBT people.[4][5][6]
Symbols of LGBT pride include the LGBT rainbow flag, butterfly, the Greek lambda symbol, and the pink, as well as black triangles reclaimed from their past use as Nazi concentration camp badges of shame.[7]
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Advocates of gay pride have used history to point to oppression as well as differing levels of acceptance of homosexuality throughout history.[8] The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identifier, as European societies have done at least for the past century. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but by the extent to which such desire or behavior conformed to social norms. These norms were based on gender, age and social status.[9] "Lesbian" derives from the name of the island of Lesbos,[10][11] which was famous for the poetess Sappho, who wrote love poetry to female lovers.[12] Homosexuality in the ancient Roman Empire is considered to have been widespread but was tempered by the complex social systems of the society.[13]
During Medieval times all forms of sexuality began to be repressed by the church as the message of heaven and hell gained popularity.[14] Horrible conditions and disease were widespread. Belief among people that they were suffering from the wrath of God was common, and immorality was blamed. This principle had roots in Roman philosophy.[15] Any and all forms of homosexuality became not only shameful but punishable by death.[16] In 390, the first law banning same-sex love was enacted in Rome, making it punishable by death.[17]
At the turn of the century in Germany there was an early gay rights movement akin to today's Gay Pride movement. Led by Magnus Hirschfeld, this movement sought to educate the public and to bring about the repeal of Paragraph 175, a provision of the German Criminal Code begun on the 15th May, 1871, which made homosexual acts between males a crime. Hirschfeld eventually circulated a gay rights petition in 1903, meant to secure equal rights for gay people. The first to sign this petition was Albert Einstein.[18]
Part of the gay pride movement honors past LGBT figures who prospered despite persecution for their openness and coming out of various perceived closets. There have been notable figures that have fought for or involved themselves in gay rights, or their right to live their lives as they saw fit. Oscar Wilde is amongst the more famous for his writings as well for his imprisonment for "the love that dare not speak its name". Quentin Crisp also battled societal norms to live and love without the fear of arrest. Author of The Naked Civil Servant, he quickly became an icon and camp figure within LGBT communities, remaining a steadfast symbol of gay pride.
During World War II as Nazi Germany began its domination of Europe many people found themselves being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Jesse Barnett, one of the most outspoken activists of the time, perished in 1942 in a concentration camp. The Holocaust was undertaken with homosexuals as one of the groups targeted with gay men being marked with a pink triangle badge while lesbians were designated with a black triangle for "antisocial behavior".[19]
In June 1969, a group of LGBT people rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 43 Christopher Street, New York City. Further protests and rioting continued for several nights following the raid. This is considered to have been an important event for the Gay Rights movement.
A 1964 fundraiser on behalf of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), a group of gay activists and Protestant ministers, held on New Year's Eve at California Hall on Polk Street in San Francisco was the site of the first reported schuffle between activists and police over harassment by officers at the scene. An event ticket taker and three gay lawyers were arrested. At the subsequent court hearing, the court sided with the gay defendants, one of whom, Herb Donaldson, later became a San Francisco municipal court judge.[20][21][22][23]
For three nights in August 1966, LGBT youth rioted in what came to be known as the Compton's Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco's Tenderloin (101 Taylor Street at Turk).[24][25]
On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell proposed the first gay pride parade to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations meeting in Philadelphia, along with his partner, Fred Sargeant (HYMN vice chairman), Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes.
That the Annual Reminder, in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights-be moved both in time and location.We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called Christopher Street Liberation Day. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.
We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.[26][27][28][29]
All attendees to the ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia PA voted for the march except for Mattachine Society of New York, which abstained.[26] Members of GLF attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell's group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN).[30]
Meetings to organize the march began in early January but at first there was difficulty getting some of the major New York organizations like GAA to send representatives. Rodwell and a small group consisting of his partner Sargeant, Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison of Mattachine made up the core group of the CSLD Umbrella Committee. For initial funding, Gunnison served as treasurer and sought donations from the national homophile organizations and sponsors, while Sargeant solicited donations via the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop customer mailing list and Nixon worked to gain financial support from GLF in his position as treasurer for that organization.[31][32] Other mainstays of the organizing committee were Judy Miller, Jack Waluska, Steve Gerrie and Brenda Howard GLF.[33] Believing that more people would turn out for the march on a Sunday, and so as to mark the date of the start of the Stonewall uprising, the CSLDUC scheduled the date for the first march for Sunday, June 28, 1970.[34] With Dick Leitsch's replacement as president of Mattachine NY by "Michael Kotis" in April, 1970, opposition to the march by Mattachine ended.[35] This became the first of the extended annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world.
In New York and Atlanta the annual day of celebration to commemorate the Stonewall Riot came to be called Gay Liberation Day; in San Francisco and Los Angeles it was called Gay Freedom Day. Both names spread as more and more cities and towns started holding similar celebrations.
In the 1980s there was a major cultural shift in the Stonewall Riot commemorations. The previous loosely organized, grassroots marches and parades were taken over by more organized and less radical elements of the gay community. The marches began dropping "Liberation" and "Freedom" from their names under pressure from more conservative members of the community, replacing them with the philosophy of "Gay Pride" (in the more liberal San Francisco, the name of the gay parade and celebration was not changed from Gay Freedom Day Parade to Gay Pride Day Parade until 1994). The Greek lambda symbol and the pink triangle which had been revolutionary symbols of the Gay Liberation Movement, which is headed by were tidied up and incorporated into the Gay Pride, or Pride, movement, providing some symbolic continuity with its more radical beginnings. The pink triangle was also the inspiration for the homomonument in Amsterdam, commemorating all gay men and lesbians who have been subjected to persecution because of their homosexuality.
In 2008 the Queen of Spain, Sofia de Grecia was quoted by the writer Pilar Urbano as opposing Gay Pride and to the law on same sex marriage approved by the Spanish Parliament. The Queen and the Royal House denied it.[36]
In 2000, President Bill Clinton proclaimed June to be Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in the United States, and on June 1, 2009, President Barack Obama proclaimed June to be LGBT Pride month in the United States.[37]
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