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Gay pride, LGBT pride or simply pride is the positive stance against discrimination and violence toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to promote their self-affirmation, increase their visibility as a social group, build community, and celebrate sexual diversity and gender variance. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements throughout the world. What’s more, pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals and even a cable TV station.

Ranging from solemn to carnivalesque, pride events are typically held during LGBT Pride Month or some other time that commemorates a turning point in a country’s LGBT history, for example Moscow Pride in May for the anniversary of Russia's 1993 decriminalization of homosexuality. Some types of pride events include LGBT pride parades and marches, rallies, commemorations, community days, dance parties, and large festivals such as Sydney Mardi Gras, which spans several weeks.

Common symbols of pride are the rainbow or pride flag, the lowercase Greek letter lambda (λ), the pink triangle and the black triangle, these latter two reclaimed from use as badges of shame in Nazi concentration camps.

Historical background

Pride precursors

Annual Reminders

The 1950s and 1960s in the United States was an extremely repressive legal and social period for LGBT people. In this context American homophile organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society coordinated some of the earliest demonstrations of the modern LGBT rights movement. These two organizations in particular carried out pickets called “Annual Reminders” to inform and remind Americans that LGBT people did not enjoy basic civil rights protections. Annual Reminders began in 1965 and took place each July 4 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

"Gay is Good"

The anti-LGBT discourse of these times equated both male and female homosexuality with mental illness. 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.

Christopher Street Liberation Day

Early on the morning of Saturday, 28 June 1969, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning persons rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 43 Christopher Street, New York City. This riot and further protests and rioting over the following nights were the watershed moment in modern LGBT rights movement and the impetus for organizing LGBT pride marches on a much larger public scale.

On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell proposed the first pride march to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) meeting in Philadelphia, along with his partner, Fred Sargeant, 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.

All attendees to the ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia voted for the march except for Mattachine Society of New York, which abstained. Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell's group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN).

Meetings to organize the march began in early January at Rodwell's apartment in 350 Bleecker Street. At first there was difficulty getting some of the major New York organizations like Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) to send representatives. Rodwell and his partner Sargeant, Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison of Mattachine made up the core group of the CSLD Umbrella Committee (CSLDUC). 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. Other mainstays of the organizing committee were Judy Miller, Jack Waluska, Steve Gerrie and Brenda Howard of GLF. 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. With Dick Leitsch's replacement as president of Mattachine NY by "Michael Kotis" in April, 1970, opposition to the march by Mattachine ended.

There was little open animosity, and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by. – The New York Times coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970

Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street and the first Gay Pride march in U.S. history, covering the 51 blocks to Central Park. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers. The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15 city blocks. Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".

Spread

On the same weekend gay activist groups on the West Coast of the United States held a march in Los Angeles and a march and 'Gay-in' in San Francisco.

One day earlier, on Saturday, 27 June 1970, Chicago Gay Liberation organized a march from Washington Square Park ("Bughouse Square") to the Water Tower at the intersection of Michigan and Chicago avenues, which was the route originally planned, and then many of the participants extemporaneously marched on to the Civic Center (now Richard J. Daley) Plaza. The date was chosen because the Stonewall events began on the last Saturday of June and because organizers wanted to reach the maximum number of Michigan Avenue shoppers. Subsequent Chicago parades have been held on the last Sunday of June, coinciding with the date of many similar parades elsewhere.

The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm. By 1972 the participating cities included Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami, and Philadelphia, as well as San Francisco.

Frank Kameny soon realized the pivotal change brought by the Stonewall riots. An organizer of gay activism in the 1950s, he was used to persuasion, trying to convince heterosexuals that gay people were no different than they were. When he and other people marched in front of the White House, the State Department and Independence Hall only five years earlier, their objective was to look as if they could work for the U.S. government. Ten people marched with Kameny then, and they alerted no press to their intentions. Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there was at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was twenty-five hundred."

Similar to Kameny's regret at his own reaction to the shift in attitudes after the riots, Randy Wicker came to describe his embarrassment as "one of the greatest mistakes of his life". The image of gays retaliating against police, after so many years of allowing such treatment to go unchallenged, "stirred an unexpected spirit among many homosexuals". Kay Lahusen, who photographed the marches in 1965, stated, "Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile movement.... Many new activists consider the Stonewall uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly it was the birth of gay pride on a massive scale."

1980s to present

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 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.

Backlash

There is anti-LGBT backlash in the form of criticism or protest against pride events both within and outside the LGBT community. For example, Bob Christie's documentary Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride evaluates gay pride events in different countries within the context of local opposition.

In-group

The growth and commercialization of Christopher Street Days, coupled with their de-politicalisation, has led to an alternative CSD in Berlin, the so-called "Kreuzberger CSD" or "Transgenialer" ("Transgenial"/Trans Ingenious") CSD. Political party members are not invited for speeches, nor can parties or companies sponsor floats. After the parade there is a festival with a stage for political speakers and entertainers. Groups discuss lesbian/transsexual/transgender/gay or queer perspectives on issues such as poverty and unemployment benefits (Hartz IV), gentrification, or "Fortress Europe."

In June 2010, American philosopher and theorist Judith Butler refused the Civil Courage Award (Zivilcouragepreis) of the Christopher Street Day Parade in Berlin, Germany at the award ceremony, arguing and lamenting in a speech that the parade had become too commercial, and was ignoring the problems of racism and the double discrimination facing homosexual or transsexual migrants. According to Butler, even the organizers themselves promote racism. The general manager of the CSD committee, Robert Kastl, countered Butler's allegations and pointed out that the organizers already awarded a counselling center for lesbians dealing with double discrimination in 2006. Regarding the allegations of commercialism Kastl explained further that the CSD organizers don't require small groups to pay a participation fee which starts at 50 € and goes up to 1500 €. He also distanced himself from all forms of racism and islamophobia.

Gay Shame, a radical movement within the LGBT community, opposes the assimilation of LGBT people into mainstream, heteronormative society, the commodification of non-heterosexual identity and culture, and in particular the (over)commercialization of pride events.

"Straight Pride" analogy

"Straight Pride" and "Heterosexual Pride" are analogies and slogans that oppose heterosexuality to homosexuality by copying the phrase "Gay Pride". Originating from the Culture Wars in the United States, "Straight Pride" is a form of conservative backlash as there is no straight or heterosexual civil rights movement. While criticism from inside and outside the LGBT community abounds, the relatively few isolated and unrelated "Straight Pride" incidents have, however, gained some media attention especially when they involve government and public institutions.

Initiatives and criticism by governments and political leaders

Spain

In a 2008 interview for the biography book La Reina muy cerca (The Queen Up Close) by Spanish journalist and writer Pilar Urbano, Queen Sofía of Spain sparked off controversy by voicing her disapproval of LGBT pride in addition to overstepping her official duties as a member of the Royal Family by censuring the Spanish Law on Marriage in how it names equal same-sex unions “matrimonio” (marriage). Albeit without using the slogan "Strait Pride", Queen Sofía was directly quoted as saying that if heterosexuals were to take the streets as the LGBT community does for Gay Pride parades, that the former collective would bring Madrid to a standstill. Ironically, this analogy had already come true because the celebrations for the wedding of her son Felipe, Prince of Asturias to commoner Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano paralyzed the city on the morning of May 22, 2004.

Even though the Royal Household of Spain approved publication of the interview and Pilar Rubio offered to share the interview recording, both Queen Sofía and the Royal Household have refuted the comments in question.

Brazil

In August 2011, Sao Paulo city alderman Carlos Apolinário of the right-wing Democrats Party sponsored a bill to organize and sponsor "Heterosexual Pride Day" on the third Sunday of December. The bill was passed by the city council, and awaits the signature of mayor Gilberto Kassab. Apolinário, an Evangelical Protestant, stated that the intent of the parade was a "struggle...against excesses and privileges". Members of Grupo Gay da Bahia and the Workers' Party criticized the bill as enhancing "the possibility of discrimination and prejudice". However, no events have ever been held.

Initiatives by groups

White Aryan Resistance or Ku Klux Klan have set up "Straight Pride" events as a direct reaction to "Gay Pride" events to appeal to anomic adolescents.

In 1991, a group of conservative organisations at University of Massachusetts organised a "Straight Pride" rally, which was attended by about 50 people. However a crowd ten times the size, came to protest against the rally. In 2005, a "Straight Pride Week" was organised at University of Central Oklahoma by the College Republicans on campus.

In July 2008, group of reggae artists announced about their plans to arrange Straight Pride in New York to support some Jamaican musicians harassed by LGBT activists. According to LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell, this "Straight Pride" event was "a promotion of straight supremacism".

"Straight Pride" t-shirts have been sold at American Tea Party protests.

Incidents involving minors

Chambers v. Babbitt (2001)

"All students benefit from the respectful and thoughtful exchange of ideas and sharing of beliefs and practices. Schools, in particular, are environments that can provide education of both the substance of diversity and the responsible manner with which such diversity is approached and expressed"

In 2001, Woodbury High School in St. Paul, Minnesota created homophobia-free areas called "safe zones" designated by an inverted pink triangle and intended for LGBT students. Student Elliot Chambers reacted by wearing a makeshift t-shirt with the slogan "Straight Pride" and the image of male and female stick figures holding hands.

In light of previous anti-LGBT incidents, principal Babbitt ordered Chambers to remove the shirt. A court case ensued. Judge Donovan Frank upheld Chambers' complaint that his First Amendment rights had been violated, and that the principal's decision was unjustified. Although praising Principal Babbitt's intentions, the judge explained that views of both sides of the debate should be allowed and that such issues should be resolved within the community, not within the court system.

Harper v. Poway Unified School District (2006)

In 2003, administration and students at Poway High School worked together to perform a Day of Silence. As a counter-protest, a "Straight Pride Day" took place. In 2004, the day after a second "Day of Silence" event student Tyler Chase Harper arrived wearing a t-shirt with anti-LGBT slogans. Required to remain in the school office for the day and thereby excluded from classes, he then filed a lawsuit. In this case the school was deemed to have acted lawfully.

St. Charles North High School

In response to a local spate of suicides amongst LGBT adolescents, an Ally Week was held at St. Charles North High School in St. Charles, Illinois in 2010. On the first day of this Ally Week, though, three students arrived wearing "Straight Pride" t-shirts. The back of these t-shirts displayed Leviticus 20:13, a verse stating that those who perform homosexual acts should be put to death. While the school did not force the students to remove their t-shirts, it did persuade them to remove the bible quotation. The following day two different students arrived wearing "Straight Pride" t-shirts minus the bible quotations and were consequently asked to remove their shirts.

See also

Notes

1. "Symbols of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Movements". www.lambda.org. Retrieved 2007-07-30.
2. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/kameny_f.html
3. Sargeant, Fred. "1970: A First-Person Account of the First Gay Pride March." The Village Voice. June 22, 2010. retrieved January 3, 2011.
4. ^ Carter, p. 230
5. Marotta, pp. 164–165
6. Teal, pp. 322–323
7. Duberman, pp. 255, 262, 270–280
8. Duberman, p. 227
9. Nagourney, Adam. "For Gays, a Party In Search of a Purpose; At 30, Parade Has Gone Mainstream As Movement's Goals Have Drifte." New York Times. June 25, 2000. retrieved January 3, 2011.
10. Carter, p. 247
11. Teal, p. 323
12. Duberman, p. 271
13. Duberman, p. 272
14. Duberman, p. 314 n93
15. ^ Fosburgh, Lacey (June 29, 1970). "Thousands of Homosexuals Hold A Protest Rally in Central Park", The New York Times, p. 1.
16. Clendinen, p. 62–64.
17. ^ LaFrank, p. 20.
18. "The San Francisco Chronicle", June 29, 1970
19. "As of early 1970, Neil Briggs became the vice-chairman of the LGBTQ Association", CanPress, February 28, 1970.
20. "Chicago Tribune", June 28, 1970, p. A3
21. "Outspoken: Chicago's Free Speech Tradition". Newberry Library. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
22. Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Crage, Suzanna M. (October 2006). "Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth", American Sociological Review, 71 (5) pp. 724–752. doi 10.1177/000312240607100502
23. Cain, p. 91–92.
24. Carter, p. 251.
25. ^ Clendinen, p. 25.
26. LaFrank, p. 21.
27. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-LGBT-Pride-Month/
28. Butler, Judith. I must distance myself from this complicity with racism (Video) (Transcript). Christopher Street Day 'Civil Courage Prize' Day Refusal Speech. European Graduate School. June 19, 2010.
29. Ataman, Ferda / Kögel, Annette / Hasselmann, Jörg: "Butler-Auftritt: Heftige Diskussionen nach Kritik an CSD" published in: Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin) on July 20, 2010
30. Pilar Urbano attribute to Queen Sofía polemic comments La Vanguardia.
31. Pilar Urbano attribute to Queen Sofía polemic comments La Vanguardia.
32. Andrew Downie (August 4, 2011). "'Heterosexual Pride Day' in São Paulo?". Christian Science Monitor.
33. Blazak, R. (1 February 2001). "White Boys to Terrorist Men: Target Recruitment of Nazi Skinheads". American Behavioral Scientist. 44 (6): 982–1000. doi:10.1177/00027640121956629.
34. "Campus Life: Massachusetts; Angry Gay Groups Drown Out Rally By Conservatives". New York Times. 10 March 1991. Retrieved 23 March 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)
35. "College Republicans Plan 'Straight Pride Week'". KCRA.com. 28 January 2005. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
36. Straight pride parade to hit New York City
37. Straight Pride Parade to be Held in New York City
38. Tony Grew (8 July 2008). "Straight Pride has a "homophobic agenda"". Pink News. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
39. Heywood, Todd (12 April 2010). "'Straight pride' shirts at Tea Party rally draw fire". Michigan Messanger. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
40. Lepore, Jill (2010). The whites of their eyes : the Tea Party's revolution and the battle over American history. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 126–127. ISBN 9780691150277.
41. Biegel, Stuart (2010). The right to be out: sexual orientation and gender identity in America's public schools. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. p. 203. ISBN 9780816674572.
42. Fenton, Ben (18 January 2002). "Student wins right to show 'straight pride'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
43. ^ Ayres, Ian (2005). Straightforward. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 40–44. ISBN 9780691121345. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
44. Schubert, Frank A. (2011). Introduction to law and the legal system (10th ed. ed.). Boston: Wadsworth. pp. 229–233. ISBN 9780495899334. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
45. Fuller, James (11 November 2010). "'Straight Pride' shirts become free speech fight at St. Charles North". ]. Retrieved 23 March 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)

External links

This article's use of external links may not follow Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (August 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• 2010 Pride Parade Calendar – a large list of 2010 world pride parades with embedded YouTube videos
• List of worldwide Gay Pride events – event info and photos
• LGBT Religious Archives Network Exhibit – The Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH)
• Yahoo! Pride – Yahoo!'s Guide to Worldwide LGBT Pride
• Gay Pride Coast To Coast – photos by CBS News
• Gay Pride Photography – images from pride parades worldwide

References

• Alwood, Edward (1996). Straight News: Gays, Lesbians, and the News Media Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-08436-6.
• Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 031234269.
• Duberman, Martin (1993). Stonewall Dutton, New York. ISBN 0-452-27206-8.
• Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3896-5.
• Marotta, Toby (1981). The Politics of Homosexuality. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-31338-4.
• Teal, Donn (1971). The Gay Militants. New York, Stein and Day. ISBN 0-8128-1373-1.

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