Pride Month: Remembering the Beginning of Pride

This week, Jerky remembers the event and people who laid the foundations of the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States which then spread to the whole world.

Pride Month celebrates sexual and gender diversity, inclusivity and acceptance. The happy, colorful parades and celebrations are a modern staple of this month. This makes it easy to forget that Pride Month and the LGBTQ liberation movement started in the US with an uprising.

A Bit of History

Back in the 60s, discriminatory laws against homosexuality and transgender people were still in effect pretty much everywhere in the United States— except Illinois— and it was common for the police to raid alleged queer spaces such as bars, clubs and bathhouses.

On June 28, 1969, following a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in New York City, queer people stood up against the unfair persecution of gay, lesbian and trans folks in the city. Thousands of people were involved in the spontaneous rebellion that lasted most of the week following the Stonewall Inn police raid.

Accounts of the uprising vary wildly, and it is still hard today to know exactly what happened. Some attribute the event's start to butch lesbian Stormé DeLarverie, who allegedly told the growing crowd: “Why don't you guys do something!?” after being arrested and beaten by police officers. Others attribute the first rock thrown—well, a brick actually— to street drag queen Marsha P. Johnson who picked it up from a close-by construction site.

In the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, the LGBTQ liberation movement rapidly took off. It expanded beyond New York City to other American urban areas and beyond the country’s borders. While LGBTQ associations and advocacy groups already existed before Stonewall, their number exploded from around 50 nationwide to over 1500 a year later and an estimated 2500 two years later.

From Stonewall to Worldwide

On June 28, 1970, Christopher Street Liberation Day marked the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and was considered the first Pride March ever, with other marches held in Chicago and Los Angeles. A year later, in 1971, the cities of Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Miami, Minneapolis and Philadelphia and San Francisco also held their first march!

The protests and marches of the first years gradually morphed into the vibrant celebrations we know today. Such happy events were much needed for the community, especially when the AIDS crisis suddenly emerged at the beginning of the 80s, and so many people were lost to the illness.

The month of June was officially recognized as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month in 2009 by President Barack Obama, 40 years after the Stonewall Inn uprising. Nowadays, almost every major city in the US has its Pride March to celebrate the significant advances in LGBTQ rights and to remember all those who fought to give the younger generation a safe place to exist.

This Pride month, cheer on the community by supporting your favorite LGBTQ cam models on Jerkmate.

Create a new Premium account in June and Jerky will donate 5$ to the Trevor Project to support LGBTQ youth’s health and safety!