There are two sides of Pride in America: What LGBTQ+ people are celebrating and how the people who hate us are responding. It’s an often stunning disconnect, particularly as we view it through the lens of mainstream media. We are “seen” as never before—Philly witnessed that this past Pride weekend. But the violent rhetoric ratcheting up from the people who hate us has never been more blatant—or with more real-life consequences.
As I watched local TV news coverage of the Pride festivities in Philadelphia over the weekend, I started thinking about how astonishing it was that in my lifetime every network had assigned a reporter to cover the LGBTQ+ community and they would all say the words “gay, trans and queer” multiple times without choking or cringing or hoping no one they knew saw them on TV.
I’m of that first generation post-Stonewall—the activists born of that movement. I’ve been an activist since I was expelled from Girls’ High for being a lesbian back in the ’70s.
When I was a teenager, the publisher of this paper, Mark Segal was doing direct action zaps at TV stations to get attention for gay rights (we hadn’t added LBTQ yet) because Stonewall was a concept that hadn’t translated into gay lives being worthy of reporting by mainstream media.
AIDS would change all that. When AIDS hit the gay community, we were news, but it was an ongoing tragedy that took the lives of so many of our friends and lovers, artists and writers. I lost two of my closest friends, Assotto Saint and Darrell Yates Rist. I can’t even remember Pride from those years. But the AIDS crisis meant we did finally break the lavender ceiling of mainstream media. The mass dying, the constant protests, the outing of celebrities—there was no putting us back in a media closet. High-profile hate crimes like the killings of Matthew Shepard, Sakia Gunn and Brandon Teena and the passage of the notorious Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) and Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) laws kept gay rage in the news. But none of that coverage brought LGBTQ+ people any closer to the “acceptance” of gay and trans people that the community kept protesting for.
In the past 20 years, that perception—aided by positive media representation—has begun to shift. Polling shows more people are accepting of LGBTQ+ people and relationships. That began in part when politicians started courting us as a voting bloc. Concomitantly, the mainstream media began to report on us in ways that weren’t negative. In 2000, Hillary Clinton made history by marching in the New York City Pride parade—still the only First Lady to ever do so. She would march again as senator from New York and as presidential nominee.
All of this history went through my head after I watched a local CBS news reporter traversing the tables selling the wares of queer people and conversing with a range of Pride goers animatedly and naturally. The day before Philly had made history for having a Guinness-record-breaking drag story hour at the National Constitution Center.
What a time to be alive. Gen Z won’t have the relentless and often crushing fight for basic rights and recognition that those of us who are Boomers or Gen Xers have experienced. Or at least less so. With more people out of the closet and able to live their authentic lives, there is a larger community and the concomitant support that provides.
And yet for all the positive media attention like the love LGBTQ+ people got from Philly media this weekend, discrimination is ratcheting up due to GOP lawmakers. Donald Trump says he will end a series of LGBTQ+ protections established by the Biden administration “on day one” of his presidency if he is reelected in November. Every week, I have reported at least one story dealing with discrimination and bigotry and how it is impacting our communities, like the shocking new data from the Trevor Project, the main suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S., revealing that more than one in 10 young people who identify as LGBTQ+ attempted suicide in 2023.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have issued a Public Service Announcement warning about Pride month events being targeted in the U.S. by foreign terrorist organizations. Increased threat levels domestically included recently documented instances of homophobic and transphobic threats.
The hate is out there.
In the North Carolina governor’s race, the GOP candidate, Mark Robinson, who is also the current lieutenant governor, says “God formed me” to fight LGBTQ+ issues. Robinson, who is leading in the polls, referred to being transgender and homosexuality as “filth” and said gays are equivalent to “what the cows leave behind” as well as “maggots” and “flies.”
On Monday, Colorado’s Republican Party called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned, saying in a fundraising email that LGBTQ+ Americans are “godless groomers.” That was repeated in multiple social media posts ranting against Pride Month.
“Burn all the #pride flags this June,” the state GOP wrote Monday on Twitter/X. Earlier Monday, an email sent by the party with the subject line “God Hates Pride” perpetuated the false assertion that LGBTQ+ people are “grooming” children to sexually abuse them.
“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” reads the email.
The party’s message—which includes a link to a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views—is signed by state Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, who is also a candidate for Congress.
NBC News reports a series of Pride flag attacks nationwide. When he was president, Donald Trump banned Pride flags at U.S. embassies. The Pride flag is a symbol—and a fairly innocuous one at that—of LGBTQ+ visibility. When President Biden hung a Pride flag last year at the White House, Republicans went ballistic, falsely claiming Biden violated the U.S. Flag Code during a White House Pride Month event. The code only applies to flags flown on the staff, not at the balcony. But various versions of the claim, including statements from several GOP legislators, were shared thousands of times across different social media platforms.
The embrace of Pride is not being felt by everyone and the rage against LGBTQ+ visibility continues much as it did when I was a young activist. What is different is that there are more of us out there refusing to be silenced. There is solidarity in numbers and 24 years after Hillary Clinton made history marching in the Pride parade, the current president has no fear of voicing his support for LGBTQ+ people and even has a Pride banner on his Twitter account. Biden also said, “Everyone is entitled to dignity and respect, no matter who they are, whom they love, or how they identify. My Administration is committed to strengthening mental health and support resources for LGBTQI+ folks and families of LGBTQI+ kids.”
And so the evolution of Pride continues and with it the struggle for our rights and our lives.