HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! This is here is a call to all of our colorful readers who celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride. Share your Pride stories with us. Bring is your happy, your love, your family, your friends, your shirtless, your drunk, your outfits, your best, and your worst; bring us your first pride event, your parade, your festival, your activism, your meaning, your evolution, your visibility, your dignity, or whatever you want to share about pride. We want to hear your stories. We want to document your history. Please allow us to share your pride.
The month of June is LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred in June 1969. Most Pride events continue to be canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced most prides to go digital across the country and around the world for another year. But we can still connect, reflect and share our pride stories through assays, photos and memorabilia that captures our history.
“Pride is a time to recall the trials the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community has endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought — and continue to fight — for full equality,” reads A Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month, 2021, by President of the United States, Joe Biden. “Pride is both a jubilant communal celebration of visibility and a personal celebration of self-worth and dignity. This Pride Month, we recognize the valuable contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals across America, and we reaffirm our commitment to standing in solidarity with LGBTQ+ Americans in their ongoing struggle against discrimination and injustice… During LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically. In doing so, they are opening hearts and minds, and laying the foundation for a more just and equitable America.”
Photo by Steven DefalcoThe year is 1993. This is a sassy photo of WEHO TIMES publisher and editor Paulo Murillo during Pride in West Hollywood, standing on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard. This photo was taken during a time when young gays hid from the Channel 7 (ABC7) news cameras because they didn’t want to be outed to their families on the 10 o’clock news. A lot has changed in 28 years (most young LGBTQs these days run towards the cameras, instead of away from them). Our struggle is still very real, but let us not forget, let us pay tribute and celebrate in our own way the personal progress we have all made as LGBTQ+ folks.
HAPPY PRIDE EVERYONE!!! Be well. Stay safe.
Please email all your Pride stories and pictures to [email protected].
