June is Pride Month.

Pride Month’s origins can be traced to June 28, 1969, at a small bar called the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City. It marked a major turning point in the movement against the brutalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+) Americans. 

During those early morning hours, a group of 200+ people, including transgender and BIPOC members of the community, experienced one of many bar raids. (READ: “50 Years After the Stonewall Uprising.”) Violence erupted during one of the raids (the establishment was serving alcohol without a liquor permit), resulting in six non-consecutive days of protests.

Witnesses and historians agree that discrimination and the laws that supported it sparked the Stonewall Uprising. At this time in U.S. history, living openly as an LGBTQ+ person was, effectively, illegal. Many federal, state and local laws were in place that made activities such as dressing against gender norms, non-heterosexual relationships and more, against the law. 

Additionally, laws in some communities (not necessarily those targeting certain groups) were selectively enforced, sometimes targeting only certain populations.

These laws and practices created a culture of fear that led people who identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community to frequent establishments operating below the radar of the law.

One year after the Stonewall Uprising, the first Pride march set off from the Stonewall Inn and the tradition has continued ever since. Thirty years later, President Bill Clinton first proclaimed June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” Forty years after Stonewall, President Barack Obama expanded the title to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month,” and President Joe Biden further expanded the title to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month” in 2021 and “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+)” Pride Month in 2022. 

The Stonewall Uprising was not the first instance of resistance against unfair treatment of the LGBTQ+ community; however, it was a tipping point for a broader discourse that would lead the slow wheels of justice to begin unraveling harmful laws that legislated discrimination.