The Peoples LGBT+ United Society wishes our entire LGBT+ family a joyous, uplifting, and revitalizing Pride Month this June. This is our second Pride month since our founding in mid-2023 and we will continue to attend and report on Pride events across the country. This month also marks the 56th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. As we celebrate this Pride month together, we want to reiterate our call for solidarity and unity in the LGBT+ family we ALL call home.
With the recent re-election of Donald Trump, every day we read about attacks on our rights, freedoms, and equality. Not even a full year into the current administration, we have witnessed the executive branch issue orders to usurp the definition of genders, ban transgender individuals from the military, eliminate transgender health care, and illegally detain and imprison innocent LGBT+ activists. As a nation, we must make it clear that we as a community do not stand for or support these illegal and immoral overreaches of power. We must remember that these abuses by those in power do not define who we are and do not represent any will of the American people.
Within the LGBT+ family, we must remember that Pride is an event that serves so many functions. Pride is about solidarity so that the activists spearheading the fight against these abuses of power feel safe, protected, and supported in the movements that serve to protect our community. Solidarity within our family makes it clear to those attacking us that an assault on one of us is an assault on all of us. Pride is also about sending a message of passive acceptance and normalization of LGBT+ ways of life. This message is just as much for Donald Trump as it is for the teenager struggling with gender identity or sexual orientation. Pride sends the message that we are here, that we are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and that we are just as much a part of the community as everybody else. We take the celebration of Pride to send the message that we live and love like every-day Americans so that those struggling to come out of the closet – to live their open and honest lives – will know that they have a home.
With so much LGBT+ struggle happening nationally and internationally, it is evident we have a fight ahead of us as a community. We are no strangers to this fight. PLUS will continue to be here to advocate for our rights and freedoms, report on news and events relating to our family and community, and amplify and uplift the voices of those who need to be heard in this arena we all find ourselves in together. The Stonewall Lives! Bulletin will continue operation with new editions released throughout the upcoming year. We look forward to staying in the fight and continuing to build our organization and relationships with others. Together we stand strong in LGBT+ Solidarity!
PLUS Board of Directors
Victoria Crenshaw