Happy Pride?
We normally think of June as a month celebrating queer joy, but this year feels different.
Wishing everyone "Happy Pride!" is generally how we hard-launch ourselves into the month of June - widely recognised as Pride Month in the US - but it's feeling difficult to muster much rainbow-infused joy this year.
Maybe it's just part of getting older, but every year feels like an emotional roller-coaster. We used to tell each other that "it gets better" but that affirmation is starting to ring a little hollow.
While we've had tough years before, there's a few factors at play in 2026 that are really testing our resilience.
From a Pride perspective, the widespread withdrawal of corporate sponsorship from any events associated with the LGBTQ community is a visible and pointed illustration of how political and public opinion has shifted - specifically in the US but also around the world.
Having worked hard to make the business-case for businesses to embrace diversity and equality, it's interesting to observe how quickly tides can turn and how transactional corporate support for Pride was. Instinctively, we knew that, but it's helpful to have that spelt out in black and white.
Economically, things are rough and are projected to get rougher. It's marginalised people that are impacted the most by economic uncertainty and hardship. If you can't pay your bills, celebrating anything is generally the last thing on your mind.
Geo-politically, there's also a lot going on. The US government is leaning into its rogue-state era. Countries are being bombed and invaded. As in any war, it's civilians who are paying the heaviest price. It feels crazy for us to be breaking out the rainbow flags at a time like this - no one wants to be accused of pink-washing genocide.
The solution? Do we just give up on Pride? Should we skip the marches and parades this year?
Pride began as a protest. At its strongest, Pride is a radical act of resistance powered by queer joy. Our community is at its strongest in times of adversity, when we are othered by those who control the world's resources.
We don't need corporate sponsorship in order to come together as a community. We don't need our events to be validated by the inclusion of uniformed police or members of the military.
Being marginalised creates opportunities for us to recognise our intersection with other marginalised people around the world.
It's a foundational principle of social justice that "none of us are free until all of us are free". That has never been more true than now, that has never been more true than this Pride Month.
We owe it to our queer forefathers to make this year's Pride meaningful. We can celebrate who we are, we can lift up our community, and we can voice our solidarity with all those who share our struggle.
It's Pride Month. Let's fuck shit up.
Why is June recognised as Pride Month in the United States?
Across the United States - and in many other parts of the world - the month of June is officially recognised as a time to celebrate LGBTQ Pride.
The month of June is significant because the Stonewall riots took place at the end of June in 1969.
Brenda Howard is credited with being one of the main driving forces in coordinating the first LGBTQ Pride march. Howard is also credited with the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day. Additionally, Howard - along with fellow activists Robert Martin and Craig Schoonmaker - is credited with popularising the word Pride to describe these events.
Throughout the month of June, towns and cities across the US and around the world hold LGBTQ Pride celebrations.
Why were the Stonewall riots a big deal?
The Stonewall riots of 28 June 1969 weren’t the first protests or confrontations between police and the LGBTQ community, but they’ve become symbolic of the growing consciousness and confidence that paved the way for the fight for equality and freedom from discrimination.
What triggered the Stonewall riots was a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. In the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn was a mafia-run bar that was a hub for the neighbourhood’s marginalised queer community.
In the late 60s, police raids on bars like the Stonewall Inn were commonplace - part of the continuing harassment and victimisation that LGBTQ people were experiencing at that time. The raid on the Stonewall Inn on 28 June 1969 sparked that sense of frustration into violent protests - protests that lasted six days and involved thousands of people. Perhaps most importantly, the riots received widespread media coverage.
Prior to the Stonewall riots, the push for LGBTQ equality was led by ‘homophile’ advocates - organisations such as the Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Society sought to organise and speak for gay men, and they favoured assimilation. Their objective was to demonstrate that gay men were ‘normal’ and just like everybody else.
Following the Stonewall riots, and in line with the counter-culture movements of the late-60s, representatives of the LGBTQ community became increasingly emboldened and more confrontational. New organisations were established, community-focused newspapers were published, and there was more of a willingness to be open, to be visible, to be different.
It was on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, 28 June 1970, that the first Gay Pride marches were held . The LGBTQ communities of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago held events to commemorate the raid on the Stonewall Inn and the violent confrontation that followed. The following year, Gay Pride marches were also held in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm . In subsequent years, the number of cities participating continued to grow.
Today, Pride events and celebrations are a big moment. They’re an important and symbolic opportunity for our community to come together, to celebrate our diversity and our visibility as well as our strength and resilience.
If you’re growing up in today’s world, starting to navigate your sexuality, starting to understand how you connect with the LGBTQ community that you see around you, it’s important to understand how LGBTQ identity has evolved over time, and the role that events such as the Stonewall riots have played in that.
History is important because it helps us learn from those that have gone before us - the battles that have been fought, the struggles that have been won, the mistakes that have been made.
You might not feel that you’ve got much connection with the people who lived in New York City in 1969, but it’s because of those people - because of their lifetimes of harassment and discrimination that culminated in six nights of violence - that we can proudly identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, or however you want to define yourself within the broad LGBTQ umbrella. It’s because of those people that we can live openly as ourselves, that we can get married if we want, that we can have families if we want, that we have the freedom to lead the lives that we want. It’s because of those people that we continue to hold Pride marches around the world.
We honour the marginalised people of Greenwich Village - people who had nothing left to lose, people who were pushed so far that they had no alternative but to stand up to harassment and stand up to discrimination .
Gareth Johnson