Pride Month is a time to celebrate our diversity, strength, and the continued power of our collective fight for equality… but this year things feel different.
In previous years, I’d heard people (who don’t know better or who possibly are bigoted) argue, “Do we really need Pride anymore? It’s not like gay marriage is still illegal,” but Pride is so much more than gay people’s right to marry.
Queer History is Our History
It’s a shame our schools don’t teach Queer history (or at least the events leading up to Stonewall and the history of Pride Month).
If people knew more about why we have Pride Month today, where it came from, and why being out and proud was (and can still be) a rebellious act, then everyone would know why we need Pride today just as much as we did in 1969.
Queer Life in 1969 Looked Different
Queer life in 1969 and prior looked very different from Queer life today. Back then, it was even more dangerous to be Queer, something that, if the architects of Project 2025 have their way, will return.
In 1969, there was still a significant medical stigma.
The American Psychiatric Association labeled homosexuality a “mental disorder” from 1952-1973 (which was used as a means of justifying discrimination in jobs, housing, and healthcare for Queer People).
In 1969, homosexuality was criminalized.
In the “pre-pride days,” there was no “being out of the closet” because it was not safe for anyone to be openly Queer. Laws in nearly every state made same-sex relationships illegal, allowing police to arrest people based on their identities alone.
In 1969, there were “cross-dressing” bans.
Police enforced outdated “masquerade laws” (like the three-article rule requiring people to wear clothing matching their birth assignment).
Under these “rules,” police would regularly harass, arrest, molest, strip search, and frequently physically beat people for “cross-dressing.”
In 1969, there were raids on Gay bars and police brutality.
Police routinely raided Gay bars. In these raids, patrons were often beaten, publicly humiliated, and/or arrested.
Backed Into a Corner
Additionally, because Gay bars couldn’t get legal licenses, they were often operated by the Mafia, creating unsafe spaces where customers faced exploitation (but had few alternative safe spaces to gather).
All of this became a pressure cooker because when you dehumanize people, take everything away from them (so they find themselves with nothing left to lose), and then back them into a corner (by giving them no safe spaces where they can exist in public) eventually there will come a moment where those cornered must fight back (or be taken under).
People can only take so much pressure; eventually, if the pressure continues to increase beyond a person’s (or object’s) capacity, it will be forced to blow up (or implode).
We’ve been here before, but many don’t know the history.
This (pushing trans and other Queer People out of the public eye) is the kind of pressure Project 2025 and the Trump regime are putting on us once again, winding us tight like a spring (that will eventually POP if pushed too far).
If they keep pushing, we will eventually snap back (as we did on June 28, 1969). They think we will go down easy or peacefully… but historically, this was not the case.
We got loud and physical in 1969 (when all we had were dreams of not being compelled to live in the shadows). Today, we’ve tasted public life and refuse to be forced back into the darkness.
The Stonewall Raid (June 28, 1969)
When NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, they arrested employees, assaulted customers, targeting Trans People and Drag Queens using the ‘three-article’ rule. This event was a turning point in Queer history.
There are multiple accounts and various versions of the story.
My understanding is that it was sparked when bar patrons, fed up and tired of the frequent police harassment, violence, and brutality, resisted during one raid, sparking a rebellion. Crowds fought back, throwing objects, freeing detainees, and setting the bar on fire.
Stormé DeLarverie, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera played significant roles in the uprising.
Afterwards, Protests continued for six days.
Birth of Pride – June 1970
One year later, activists organized the first Pride march (June 28, 1970) to commemorate Stonewall.
Pride Month would be officially recognized in 1999 (almost 30 years later), celebrating Queer resistance.
Pride Month, a testament to the strength of the LGBTQ+ community, was born out of the criminalization of Queer life and the poor treatment of Queer People.
From where I’m sitting this year (Texas, USA), the ongoing need for Pride (and to stand together) is more apparent than ever, especially since Project 2025 architects are hoping to overturn much of the progress Queer activists have fought to gain over the past 30 years.
Pre-Stonewall VS. Project 2025
Silencing Queer Education & History
- Pre-Stonewall: No Queer history taught. Queer existence was deliberately omitted from public discourse.
- Project 2025: Already removing words like “Transgender”and “Queer” from government sites (like the Stonewall National Monument page) and banning Pride flags on federal property.
Erasure of Legal Protections Criminalizing Queer Identity & Expression
- Pre-Stonewall: Homosexuality was criminalized nationwide, with laws banning same-sex relationships (and intimate acts between people of the same sex). Back then, “cross-dressing” was often used to justify arrests of Queer People.
- “Three-article rules” mandated clothing matching birth sex.
- Publicly dancing with or kissing same-gender partners was also illegal.
- Project 2025: Aims to remove “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from all federal laws, contracts, and protections, effectively stripping Queer People of legal recognition.
- Proposes defining “sex” solely as a “biological binary,” erasing Intersex, Trans, and Nonbinary People, while re-opening the doors for the criminalization gender nonconformity.
Promoting “Ideal” Families to Exclude Queer People
- Pre-Stonewall: Only heterosexual nuclear families were socially/legally recognized. Meanwhile, Queer relationships were deemed “disorderly,” “illegal,” and “immoral.”
- Project 2025: Prioritizes families with “married father, mother, and their children” while calling other family structures “threats to a healthy society,” while aiming to defund support for Queer People of all ages.
Weaponizing Law Enforcement Against Queer People
- Pre-Stonewall: Police routinely raided Gay bars and arrested patrons under “vice” laws, often using vicious and brutally violent tactics.
- Project 2025: Calls for prosecuting teachers/librarians providing Queer-inclusive materials as “sex offenders.” It also equates Transgender existence with “pornography.”
Criminalization Through Equating Queer Identities with “Pornography“
Project 2025 labels Transgender identity and Queer advocacy as “pornography” and “sexualization of children,” arguing “purveyors of pornography” “should be imprisoned“ and educators, librarians, and others who share such materials in a way so that minors have access to them “should be classified as registered sex offenders.”
This could criminalize:
- Healthcare providers offering gender-affirming care.
- Public displays of Queer “content” (Pride flags, drag events, social media, or internet posts) that minors can see.
- Teachers using inclusive curricula or simply respecting students’ pronouns.
Queer People Will Die
Project 2025’s policies and rhetoric create a framework that will enable severe persecution, direct physical violence, as well as indirect lethal consequences.
Enabling Violence Through Dehumanizing Rhetoric
Project 2025 repeatedly describes being Queer as a “toxic ideology,” “social contagion,” and/or “child abuse.”
By framing Queer People as “predators,” it fuels hate crimes, leading to more vigilante violence and attacks against Queer People.
This language (transgenderism, social contagion, groomer, predator, pedophile):
- Incites hostility by framing Queer existence as “a threat to children.”
- Justifies harsh penalties (like imprisonment or possibly even harsher penalties for “spreading” Transgender and other Queer “ideology“) in the justice system (if convicted by a jury that buys into the false rhetoric that Queerness is immoral).
Enabling Discrimination Under the Guise of “Religious Freedom”
- Pre-Stonewall: No recourse for Queer People needing help with job or housing discrimination, and Queer People could be fired or evicted openly.
- Project 2025: Expands “religious refusal” policies, allowing businesses to deny services to Queer people based on personal beliefs.
- If enacted, Project 2025 would result in increased instances of Queer People experiencing homelessness (due to the rolling back of housing anti-discrimination protections) and unemployment (due to removing workplace safeguards).
- In addition, religious refusals will have deadly consequences. Especially if granted to medical and health service providers.
Denying Healthcare & Bodily Autonomy
- Pre-Stonewall: The medical establishment labeled homosexuality a “mental disorder,” justifying discrimination.
- Project 2025: Seeks to ban gender-affirming care nationwide, falsely calling it “mutilation” and “child abuse” (despite it being lifesaving to those who need it).
Project 2025 aims to eliminate gender-affirming care under Medicare and Medicaid. It also seeks to allow healthcare providers to refuse treatment to Queer people based on religious objections.
This could force Trans and other Queer People into dangerous, unregulated care (or lead to the deaths of Queer People due to the refusal of lifesaving care by people “morally opposed” to our existence, who believe Queer People dying or being sick is “God’s will” as “payment for our sins“).
Today, MAGA members frequently call Queerness “mental illness.”
In early 2025, Meta changed moderation policies to allow users to call Transgender People “mentally ill” (implying being Trans is a mental illness).
Indirect Death Risks via Systemic Persecution
The Heritage Foundation (leading Project 2025) has ties to groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, which has supported criminalizing homosexuality abroad.
Combined with calls to “imprison” educators and “shut down” pro-Queer organizations, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 creates a pathway toward escalating persecution of Trans and other Queer People.
Project 2025 stops short of explicitly demanding the death penalty for Queerness. Still, its foundation of criminalization, dehumanization, and endorsement of lethal foreign laws creates a tangible risk of state-sanctioned and extrajudicial violence against Queer People if it’s not stopped.