PRIDE: What it Is, Why it Is…
Note from the author, June 1, 2026
PRIDE
It may look and feel festive; and it is. Both a celebration of our claiming the right to be and declare ourselves and a Call to Arms, as this now-multi-generational fight for freedom and legal equality is not over and we cannot rest until all are secure and safe in Self.
Be not distracted by color, sparkle and feathers…those are battle gear. We continue to fight with Loud and Visible Pride…we do not fear those who Hate (in the name of their God of Choice); we willingly embrace the Moment to Confront those who would have us hide.
We have been marching across decades, from one century to the next, for fifty-seven years. Still every Pride is someone’s first…and you are welcomed to the March.
Be You. Be Proud
PRIDE: What it IS, Why it IS
Day One of Pride Month 2026, 57 years since the Stonewall Riots, and we are still and again light-years, it would seem, from living in Equality…of enjoying and being protected by the granting of Simple Human Rights.
For thousands of years, LGBTQ+ people (or whichever label, if any at all, was appended to this genetically blessed segment of the Global Demographic) have been ignored, dismissed, accepted, embraced, revered, even exalted in certain cultures (see “two spirits” in Native American cultural history); they have been seen as a step along the way to manhood as well as imbued with special powers of foresight (and fashion) by some cultures.
It is only in the past few hundred years that this segment of society has been so aggressively targeted, hunted down, excoriated and shunned. Finding ourselves being characterized as evil segments of society, prime for eradication and elimination, to be shamed and shunned as we are targeted by even the most hateful of individuals and institutions under an insidious evil that wears the cloth of sanctity … when, in practice, these are forces and people driven by a sanctimonious evil - wanting to eradicate a population that has absolutely no effect on the lives of anyone beyond ourselves.
Faces of PRIDE
See them. Learn Them. Know Them. Remember Them.
These are simply some of those who gave voice and face to this tribe woven throughout the populations of our planet; they gave resistance, they gave courage, they gave up careers, families, freedoms and thousands gave their lives before there could be Parades.
Never forget what it has taken to get this far...and how fragile are our freedoms...
[Originally published June 1, 2021. Re-shared annually for New Eyes…]
Among the Images (if you don’t already know, google these people):
Plato
Socrates
Da Vinci
Michelangelo
Oscar Wilde
Alan Turing
McCarthy Hearings
Christine Jorgensen
Police Raids
Stonewall Riots
Drag Queens
Random Angry Protests
Marches
AIDS Memorial Quilt
Keith Haring
Millions of AIDS Deaths
Greg Louganis
Matthew Shepard
Laverne Cox
Indya Moore
David Kopay
Bob Gurr
Gay Olympics/Gay Games
Tom Waddell
Ashlyn Harris
Megan Rapinoe
Ali Krieger
Ray Douglas McDonald
Tony Kushner
The Boys in the Band stage/screen
Tom Daley
Jerry Smith
Carl Sam
Esera Tuaolo
Roy Simmons
Gus Kenworthy
Ru Paul
Elton John
Li’l Nas X
Johnny Weir
Adam Rippon
Billy Porter
Kate McKinnon
Hannah Gadsby
Wanda and Alex Sykes
Matt Bomer
Billie Jean King
Martina Navratilova
Billy Bean
Kate Clinton
Sir Ian McKellen
Elliott Page
Cast of “Pose”
Robin Roberts
Danell Leyva
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor
Eddie Izzard
George Takei
“Queer Eye” Five 2020
“Queer Eye” Five 2018
Ellen DeGeneres
Pete and Chasten Buttigieg
Thank You!
