Pride Month kicked off with events around the world starting last weekend.
It's an annual series of parades and other gatherings to celebrate LGBTQ+ culture and rights.
At its heart, Pride is both a party and a protest.
FILE - Mac Weatherill, left, and Yexara Col贸n Martinez, second from left, hold transgender pride fans as they help carry a large rainbow flag on their fourth anniversary during the annual Seattle Pride Parade, June 25, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
In the U.S. this year, that means speaking out against a聽slew of policies that impose restrictions on transgender people and that try to end diversity, equity and inclusion programming in government, education and businesses.
Here's a look at the event's roots and this year's events and themes.
When Pride Month began
The monthlong global celebration began with Gay Pride Week in late June 1970, a year after the violent police raid at New York's Stonewall Inn, a gay bar.
At a time when many LGBTQ+ people kept their identities private, the June 28, 1969, raid sparked a series of public protests and catalyzed the gay rights movement.
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The first pride week featured marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and it has since grown to other cities. On the calendar are events in Philadelphia this past weekend; New Orleans on June 14; Chicago on June 21 and 22; and New York over the weekend of June 28 and 29. Many other events in big cities and small towns are also planned.
There are pride celebrations around the world, including in Tokyo on June 8; Toronto on June 27-29; Sao Paolo on June 22; and Paris on June 28.
Some events fall outside of June, too. World Pride, a biannual event held this year in Washington, D.C., began in May and goes through June 8. Pride in London is in July; a big celebration in Rio de Janeiro is in November and Atlanta's is in October.
Former President Bill Clinton proclaimed June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in 1999, marking the first time a U.S. president did so.
A pride flag is waved against the downtown Los Angeles skyline during the LA Pride in the Park festival at Los Angeles State Historic Park, June 8, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
How Trump is targeting trans people and DEI policies
When President Donald Trump returned to office in January, he quickly attempted to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
He's especially targeted transgender people with policies that halted allowing people to change the sex listed on their passport, removed transgender military troops and sought to stop using federal insurance programs to pay for gender-affirming care for transgender people under age 19, and keep transgender athletes out of girls and women's sports competitions.
All of those changes are being challenged in court.
His actions follow years of policies in Republican-controlled states that bar gender-affirming care for transgender minors and dictate which sports transgender people can play and which school and other public bathrooms they are allowed to use. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on whether Tennessee's ban on medical treatment is constitutional.
One of Trump's orders called for removing references to what he and some other conservatives call "gender ideology" from government publications and websites.
A result of that: References to transgender people have been removed from government websites, including the one for the Stonewall National Monument, site of the event that inspired Pride.
About half of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling transgender issues, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found last month. About 4 in 10 voters approve of his job as president overall.
But support for his individual policies on transgender people is not uniformly strong, with a clearer consensus against policies that affect youth.
This year's celebrations in the U.S.
Organizers of Milwaukee's PrideFest are prepared for close to 50,000 people at the event scheduled for June 5-7.
"We're feeling that people will be showing up, and that's their protest," said Wes Shaver, the president and CEO of Milwaukee Pride, Inc.
The event's theme is "Celebrating the Power of Pride" and for the first time, one of the entertainment stages one night will feature only transgender performers. Shaver said that's an intentional move in response to Trump's policies. Another night, the stage will feature only performers of color.
Jeremy Williams, the executive producer of Philly Pride 365 in Philadelphia, said he didn't expect more protest than in the past there.
"Everybody's just there to be together," he said.
FILE - People walk in the Pittsburgh Pride Revolution March to celebrate Pride Month, June 4, 2022, in downtown Pittsburgh. (Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP, file)
The 10th anniversary of same-sex marriage legalized nationwide
One milestone that's likely to be celebrated: This month marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which recognized same-sex marriage nationwide. It was a watershed event in establishing rights for LGBTQ+ people across the country.
About two-thirds of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. said the case made the nation more accepting of same-sex couples, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week.
The poll found that LGBTQ+ people don't always feel accepted, though. About 6 in 10 said they see "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of social acceptance for those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. But only about 1 in 10 said the same is true for nonbinary and transgender people.
Which companies are backing off on sponsorships
Several big companies have pulled back on sponsorships for Pride events this year.
Among them: Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis-based brewer, declined to sponsor PrideFest in its home city after three decades of support, leaving organizers $150,000 short of last year's budget, they told The Associated Press.
NYC Pride said about 20% of its corporate sponsors dropped or reduced support, including PepsiCo and Nissan. The carmaker said it was reviewing all its marketing costs.
FILE - Participants hold a rainbow flag during the Pride Parade in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, June 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, file)
In other cities, such as Kansas City, Missouri, pride events lost about half their budgets.
Several companies that have pulled back have not explained why to the AP. But some experts see the change as part of a broader retreat from brand activism.
Still, the groups behind many Pride events say some companies have kept contributing but have asked not to be listed publicly as sponsors.
LGBTQ+ history before Stonewall
LGBTQ+ history before Stonewall
Today鈥檚 Gay Liberation Movement can trace its roots directly to the聽 on June 28, 1969. The impromptu demonstrations, which occurred after a nighttime police raid at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, lasted several days. Soon after, the Gay Liberation Front was formed, joining the many gay activist organizations that had been springing up in previous decades. From there, the movement caught fire and spread rapidly.
put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. As you read, keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is a relatively new term and, while queer people have always existed, the terminology has changed frequently over the years. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic and to accurately describe the experiences of these historical figures, we have chosen in some instances to use the terminology of the time.
Keep reading to learn about some significant moments in LGBTQ+ history.
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2900鈥2500 BC: First record of a transgender person
Although rock art dating as far back as 9600 B.C. depicts what some scholars have interpreted as homosexual love scenes, one of the first sets of skeletal remains of an LGBTQ+ person was a body thought to be a transgender woman discovered in 2011. The archaeological remains, which were found outside Prague, were that of a skeleton that was assigned male at birth but arranged in a burial ritual that was reserved strictly for women. 鈥淲e believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a transsexual or third gender grave in the Czech Republic,鈥 archaeologist Katerina Semradova said at a press conference.
2400 BC: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are buried together
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were ancient manicurists who worked for the royal court in a city called Saqqara, Egypt, around 2400 B.C. In 1964, archaeologists unearthed a joint tomb in which the men were buried face-to-face in the same fashion many married couples were buried at the time. Although the site is called the Tomb of the Two Brothers, and there is debate as to its significance, many historians have interpreted it as evidence of early gay relationships. 鈥淪ame-sex desire existed just behind the ideal facade constructed by the ancients,鈥 said Egyptologist Greg Reeder in a in Dallas.
630鈥612 BC: Sappho the poet is born
The lesbian poet Sappho, who hailed from the island of Lesbos (the root of the word lesbian), was born sometime between 630 and 621 B.C. Though her sexuality has been an ongoing subject of debate, she wrote commonly about seemingly lesbian desires, and her only complete surviving poem, 鈥淥de to Aphrodite,鈥 features the female speaker begging the goddess of love to help her get over her unrequited love for a woman.
27 BC: First recorded same-sex marriage under Roman Empire
In 27 B.C., Augustus established the Roman Empire under which the first recorded same-sex marriage ceremony reportedly took place. At this time, laws around homosexuality were also formed鈥攁mong them that gay prostitution would be legal, but taxed. When Nero became emperor decades later, he married two men鈥攐ne of whom Nero allegedly dressed in the clothing of one of Caesar鈥檚 wives and even castrated to make the man seem more 鈥渨omanlike.鈥
1478: The Spanish Inquisition stones 鈥榮odomites鈥
In 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was established, which resulted in the stoning and castration of many gays and lesbians, dubbed 鈥渟odomites鈥 at the time. Decades later, it is estimated聽there were nearly 1,000 sodomy trials before the Aragonese Inquisition.
1532: Holy Roman Empire makes 鈥榖uggery鈥 punishable by death
The Holy Roman Empire in 1532 made intercourse between two women a crime punishable by death. In 1533, the 鈥渁bominable vice of buggery鈥 for both sexes was made a capital crime, a law that remained mostly unchanged until 1861, when it was changed to life in prison. The last people executed for the crime were Londoners James Pratt and John Smith, after the landlord claimed to have seen them through a keyhole having sex.
1623: King James appoints his lover as Duke of Buckingham
It is well-documented that King James I had a lover named George Villiers whom he called his husband and the one he loved 鈥渕ore than anyone else.鈥 In 1623, he went to the length of appointing his 鈥渟weetheart,鈥 as he also called him, to the nobility as the Duke of Buckingham, a move that made him the highest-ranking subject outside the royal family.
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1791: France becomes the first Western European nation to decriminalize homosexuality
During the French Revolution, the penal code outlined new crimes and their respective punishments in an effort to take sweeping power away from judges. Along with the new code came the legalization of sodomy, which was the first lift on the ban in Western Europe and one that paved the way for others to follow.
1800s: Decriminalizing homosexuality spreads through Europe and Latin America
In 1811, the Netherlands was the first major European country of the 19th century to decriminalize homosexuality. The Dominican Republic followed suit in 1822. Over the next decade, El Salvador, Brazil, Bolivia, Portugal, Argentina, Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire), Honduras, Italy, and even the Vatican did the same鈥攁ll before the turn of the next century. By contrast, Russia, Poland, and Germany enacted new laws against gay and lesbian activity.
1886: We鈥檞ha takes part in a delegation to Washington, DC
In 1886, a mixed-gender Zuni Native American named We鈥檞ha took part in a delegation to Washington D.C., where they were introduced to then-President聽Grover Cleveland. We鈥檞ha was a famous Lhamana, a person in Zuni culture who is assigned a male gender at birth but takes on ceremonial roles and attire typically reserved for women. Today, the Lhamana gender identity is referred to as 鈥渢wo-spirit鈥 or 鈥渢hird-gender.鈥
1892: Magnus Hirschfeld earns his doctoral degree
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician who spent most of his career studying sexuality with a focus on homosexuality. He became a champion for gay rights and co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the world鈥檚 first gay rights organization. Being both Jewish and gay, he was frequently targeted in his home country, yet he continued his work. He said he became interested in activism after observing many of his gay patients who died by suicide.
1910: Emma Goldman begins speaking publicly
A contemporary of Magnus聽Hirschfeld鈥檚, Emma Goldman was an American feminist and anarchist who served as an early ally to gay rights activism. The Russian-born Jew, who emigrated to America as a teenager, was heterosexual but spent much of her life championing various minority causes. In a letter to Hirschfeld, she said: 鈥淚t is a tragedy, I feel, that which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.鈥
1931: Dora Richter becomes the first transgender woman to get vaginoplasty
Dora Richter was a transgender woman under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld who received the first known vaginoplasty procedure in 1931 (though Hirschfeld did not perform the surgery). Along with a number of other transgender women, Richter worked at the Institute for Sexual Research where she was given special permission by police to wear women鈥檚 clothing. Two years after her affirmation surgery, the Nazis burned the library of the Institute and began sending homosexuals to concentration camps.
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1932: Eleanor Roosevelt鈥檚 alleged lesbian affair
Amelia Earhart and openly gay reporter Lorena Hickok are just two of the women with whom former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was rumored to have had closeted affairs, the latter with whom over a 30-year period; 聽from 1932 to 1938. There has been extensive speculation about the former first lady鈥檚 sexuality over the years, however, some have argued it鈥檚 irrelevant when discussing her contribution to the gay rights movement, particularly given her position of power. 鈥淸Roosevelt] did more than almost anyone in the pre-Stonewall era to聽鈥攁nd she did it in the White House,鈥 wrote Marc Peyser for the Huffington Post.
1936: Federico Garc铆a Lorca is executed
In 1936, Spanish police raided the Granada home of Federico Garc铆a Lorca, a famous poet they described as a socialist prone to 鈥渉omosexual and abnormal practices.鈥 He fled to a friend鈥檚 house but they caught up with him and surrounded the home, arrested him, and took him to an interrogation spot called the Fuente Grande. According to documents published in 2015, they executed him after he gave unspecified confessions, burying him on site in a
1948: Alfred Kinsey publishes 鈥楽exual Behavior in the Human Male鈥
When biologist Alfred Kinsey published 鈥淪exual Behavior in the Human Male鈥 in 1948, he asserted that approximately 37% of men at the time had engaged in homosexual activities at least once. That, along with other findings in his book, acted as the 鈥渙pening salvos of the sexual revolution,鈥 according to some, and brought the conversation about sex of all types to the mainstream.
鈥淒uring the Twentieth Century, no one individual did more to bring homosexuality into the public forum than Alfred Charles Kinsey,鈥 , professor of Christian ethics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. 鈥淧rior to Kinsey, people were generally considered to be either heterosexual or homosexual. Instead of this binary approach, Kinsey saw sexual behavior on a continuum which rarely described individuals as either strictly homosexual or heterosexual.鈥
1951鈥52: Christine Jorgensen has sex reassignment surgery
Gender confirmation surgeries (called 鈥渟ex reassignment鈥 at the time) had been performed prior to Christine Jorgensen. However, the transgender woman from the Bronx was the first person to become famous for it, bringing awareness and resources to the trans community that previously had very little access to information. After completing two operations in Denmark, she returned to New York to instant fame and began touring, writing, and speaking to advocate for transgender rights.
1955: The Daughters of Bilitis is formed
In 1955, there weren鈥檛 any lesbian political rights groups in the United States until the Daughters of Bilitis formed in San Francisco, making history as the first group of its kind. What began as a safe space for women to meet without the risk of police raids at gay bars quickly morphed into a full-blown political organization that created other political offshoots including The Ladder鈥攖he first nationally distributed lesbian publication鈥攚hich encouraged women to 鈥渢ake off their masks.鈥 For 14 years, DOB, as they were known, helped women come out of the closest and offered resources to anyone who needed it.
1956: 鈥楪o Tell It on the Mountain鈥 is first published by James Baldwin
James Baldwin published 鈥淕o Tell It on the Mountain鈥 in 1956, offering the world a novel that was 鈥減ivotal in American gay literature,鈥 according to many critics. Although the theme of homosexuality is never outrightly expressed, the subtext is hard to miss.
1958: US Supreme Court rules in favor of gay free speech
One, Inc. v. Olesen was the first U.S. Supreme Court case that involved gay rights鈥攁nd it won, marking a triumphant moment for the emerging liberation movement. The ruling occurred in 1958 when the high court overturned a federal district court鈥檚 decision to label gay magazine ONE: The Homosexual Magazine as 鈥渙bscene鈥 and ban it from being distributed through the United States Postal Service.
1962: Illinois removes sodomy law from criminal code
In 1962, Illinois became the from its criminal code. The historic legislation occurred after the American Law Institute put together a list of recommendations called the Model Penal Code in an effort to create more legal uniformity across states. Illinois was the first state to adopt the full set of recommendations that omitted sodomy from the criminal code.
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1964: First gay rights protests at Whitehall
Although it鈥檚 hard to say for sure given the burgeoning nature of the gay rights movement at the time, the protests outside the U.S. Army鈥檚 Whitehall Street induction center in 1964 are generally considered to be the first public demonstrations for gay rights. The demonstrations occurred after the confidentiality of a gay man鈥檚 draft record was broached, prompting an activist named Randy Wicker to organize the protest to speak out against the military鈥檚 anti-gay policies.
1965: Vanguard is created
In 1965, a group of young people in San Francisco got together to create the Vanguard, the country鈥檚 first gay liberation organization. The group, co-founded by Adrian Ravarour and Billy Garrison, also produced an accompanying news publication, the Vanguard Magazine, which was created by Jean-Paul Marat and Keith Oliver St.Clair.
1966: The Mattachine Society organizes a 鈥楽ip-In鈥
When the New York State Liquor Authority banned bartenders from serving alcohol to gay people, an activist group called the Mattachine Society responded in 1966. Large groups turned out at the bar Julius鈥 in New York City to host a 鈥淪ip-In,鈥 as they called it, promoting the issue to land in court. 鈥淭he importance of this, I think, was that until this time gay people had never really fought back,鈥 said Dick Leitsch, head of the New York Mattachine Society at the time. 鈥淲e just sort of took in everything passively, didn鈥檛 do anything about it. And this time we did it, and we won.鈥
1967: Police raid Black Cat Tavern
After plain-clothed police officers raided the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles on New Year鈥檚 Day in 1967, beating up staff and patrons alike, a group of gay rights protestors began demonstrating out front. Organized by the Personal Rights in Defense and Education group, the crowd was considered the biggest civil rights demonstration the LGBTQ+ community had produced at the time, leading some historians to call it the 鈥渂irthplace of a worldwide movement.鈥
