This month (June) is celebrated as Pride Month.
What is Pride?
LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV channel, and the Pride Library.
The 1950s and 1960s in the United States constituted a highly repressive legal and social period for LGBT people. American homophile organizations like Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society coordinated some of the earliest demonstrations of the modern LGBT rights movement.
The anti-LGBT discourse of these times equated both male and female homosexuality with mental illness. However, inspired by Stokely Carmichael’s “Black is Beautiful”, gay civil rights pioneer and participant in the Annual Reminders, Frank Kameny originated the slogan “Gay is Good” in 1968 to counter social stigma and personal feelings of guilt and shame.
On Saturday, June 28, 1969, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. The riot and further protests and rioting over the following nights were the turning moment in the modern LGBT rights movement, and the impetus for organizing the LGBT pride marches on a much larger public scale.
The first Pride celebration in Canada was held in Toronto in 1972. An event that sparked the gay liberation movement, it was a fairly modest affair—a picnic on the Toronto Islands.
However, within a few years, the annual gay parade was already drawing a huge crowd. For instance, in 2011, 1.2 million people attended Pride Toronto. At WorldPride 2014 in Toronto, the first in North America, an even larger crowd gathered.
This year’s Pride Month concluded with a Parade on June 29 and 30. It seemed like everyone in Toronto, including visitors, was there.
The Parade was so colorful.
