Celebrating Pride 2025: Living Beyond a Label! 🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
As part of our celebrations of Pride, each day this month we will be touching on a different theme or part of life as LGBTQ+ people. Today we are starting off with "Pride" What is it? How did it start? What does it mean to you?
The gay rights movement is thought to go back to the early 1900s, when a small group of peopled formed various organizations including the Society for Human Rights, founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago in the 1920s.
Then, after WWII, some LGBTQ+ organizations began publishing newsletters that were gay and lesbian positive. These news letters demanded recognition for, and protested discrimination against, gays and lesbians.
While there was some progress made in that postwar era, basic civil rights were still largely denied to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Then one night in June, 1969, the gay rights movement made a huge step forward with a series of violent riots in New York City, known as the Stonewall Riots.
A year later on the anniversary of those riots, the first Pride Parade took place in the streets of New York and that anniversary is often why June is considered Pride month.
Similar stories of struggle and progress can be found all around the world.
So now I invite you to join in the discussion!
Share your own origin story?
Tell us what pride means to you?
30 Days of Pride - Living Beyond a Label!
Day 1: Celebrating Pride (current post)
Day 2: Microaggressions
Day 3: Community as Support
Day 4: Historical Figures (Harvey Milk)
Day 5: Cozy in the Closet
Day 6: Fun with Flags
Day 7: LGBTQ+ Non Fiction Books
Day 8: Gender Identity
Day 9: Homophobia
Day 10: Allies as Support
Day 11: Historical Figures (Alfred Kinsey)
Day 12: Coming Out
Day 13: The Art of Pride
Day 14: Creating a Pride Playlist
Day 15: Sexuality
Day 16: Transphobia
Day 17: Dangers of Conversion Therapy *TW*
Day 18: Historical Figures (Anne Lister)
Day 19: Living Out "Proud"
Day 20: Pride Around the World
Day 21: LGBTQ+ Fiction Books
Day 22: Aromanticism and Asexuality
Day 23: Biphobia
Day 24: Finding LGBTQ+ Affirming Mental Health Care
Day 25: Historical Figures (Lucy Hicks Anderson)
Day 26: Showing Pride
Day 27: LGBTQ+ Film
Day 28: Stonewall Riot Anniversary
Day 29: Pride Month in Review
Day 30: Carrying Pride Throughout the Year
It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around, hiii @EmotionsListener, how’ve you been?
In the briefest way possible, pride to me means self-acceptance and being your biggest cheerleader and supporter in any sphere of life. Everything else comes secondary really, “from-within” and “for yourself” is what matters most, I feel.
@EmotionsListener
always nahoa life am ally before even know means because oldest brother Lani gay and he best person in world deserve lot lot good stuff kindness love support
last couple year start know yes nahoa lgbtq to not know label nahoa try still understand self confusing feel like nothing am just nahoa
💛🌈🩵🌈💜
@EmotionsListener
To me pride means being able to live comfortably within yourself and with your surrounding. Loving yourself the way you deserve and being able to love others freely with utmost expression without feeling shame about it!
@EmotionsListener
I am so excited for this month! Pride to me is simply being yourself authentically and unapologetically. We need Pride now more than ever.
@EmotionsListener
Pride celebrations of the past (in my home city), went from a'fighting' for a parade day - to a wekk long celebration in June of every year, encompassing older 2SLGBTQ+/MOGI/Ally. I am happy to see some 'kind' of unification. But the younger generation is the generation to not only keep up the fight, but carrying on the fight - rightly or wrongly.
Us elders have fought & fought & fought........and we willl not stop fighting until we take our last breathe. But we are tired. We are weak. Yes, we are elder..
We need to know that generations coming up, will not 'foresake' our sacrifices ( violence, execution, neglect in HIV/AIDS).............nor, will they let history be 'erased'.
@EmotionsListener
What a great reflective post EmotionsListener! I really love the title of the thread too. This is such an important awareness month to celebrate Pride and I really look forward to reading through your answers on what Pride means to you all.
For me, I grew up in a place called Brighton which is a very diverse community that has a very colourful Pride Parade every single August! It is a time where you can feel how people are celebrating all of the unique differences they have and becoming very accepting of others.
Pride is more than a celebration, it’s a reminder of resilience, love, and the ongoing fight for equality. Pride commemorates the struggles that sparked change, like the Stonewall riots that you mentioned EmotionsListener, while also embracing the joy and diversity that define the LGBTQIA+ experience today.
Being supportive during Pride means listening, affirming, and showing up. It’s about creating spaces where people can feel safe to be themselves without fear or shame (which is how it should always have been!). It's recognising that coming out is a deeply personal process, that everyone’s identity is valid, and that inclusion must be active, not passive.
Pride is a celebration of love in all its forms, and that includes the love we show each other by standing together. Whether you're part of the LGBTQIA+ community or an ally, Pride is a chance to uplift each other, to celebrate progress while acknowledging how far there still is to go.
Here are some supportive reflective ideas we may want to ask ourselves about how we help others feel seen and heard:
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Am I helping others feel seen and respected?
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Am I challenging bias, even when it's uncomfortable?
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Am I celebrating people not for who I want them to be, but for who they truly are?
I am sending lots of rainbows and acceptance to all of you reflecting on such an important topic! 🌈 🌈 🌈 🌈